The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MASAF), by the intervention of the Central Inspectorate for the protection of quality and the repression of fraud of agri-food products (ICQRF), renewed today the agreement with the Alibaba Group, in the presence of Minister Francesco Lollobrigida and Matthew Bassiur, vice-president and head of global IP enforcement of the group, with the aim of protecting the intellectual property of recognized designations of origin and Italian geographical indications, and strengthening control of Made in Italy on the Asian market. This is the third renewal since the initial signing of the agreement in 2016. To identify the fakes, the Ministry has also strengthened the operational task force of the Fraud Repression Inspectorate that daily monitors and identifies counterfeit products on e-commerce sites with a measure dedicated to the budget law. The agreement with Alibaba to combat counterfeiting has led to remarkable results over the past seven years: so far, over 98% of infringing product listings have been flagged by ICQRF inspectors and removed from Alibaba's marketplaces, including within the alibaba.com business-to-business platform, which serves over 40 million professional buyers worldwide.