On 9 November senior officers from Hong Kong Customs, the Guangdong branch of China’s General Administration of Customs and Macao Customs met in Hong Kong for their sixth meeting on IP enforcement cooperation. They agreed three things: to run targeted joint operations against infringing goods at key ports and in key product categories, to share intelligence in both directions at several levels, and to work more closely with rights holders and industry bodies. The Guangdong delegation also visited an express cargo operations centre in Tuen Mun [1][2].

A meeting communiqué on its own would not tell a brand much. What makes this one worth reading is the year of enforcement behind it.

A quarterly rhythm

Hong Kong Customs has published results for four joint operations with its Guangdong and Macao counterparts in 2026 [3][4][5][6][7].

A report on last year’s meeting, held in Dongguan, said the cooperation mechanism was then in its seventh year and that the three services had run two joint operations in 2025 [8]. This year there has been one a quarter.

Three things stand out. First, most of the fakes are caught in courier parcels, not at the border crossing. In the three operations where Hong Kong Customs broke its cases down, 47 of 50 were found at courier and logistics companies; the rest were at the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge port [3][4][7]. Handbags, watches, phones, clothing, footwear and electronics feature repeatedly, and the July goods were bound for the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia [3][6]. These are mostly goods moving through Hong Kong to buyers elsewhere, often in small consignments. We covered a container example in September, when Hong Kong Customs found about 20,000 suspected counterfeit items in two containers from the Mainland at the Tuen Mun River Trade Terminal.

Second, seizures far outnumber arrests. Across the January and April operations Hong Kong reported 37 cases and three arrests, all of them truck drivers [3][4]. Customs can stop the goods, but the people who own them are usually somewhere else.

Third, only Hong Kong publishes numbers. Macao Customs described its part in the April operation, which it called the first of 2026, as intelligence analysis, monitoring of goods and routes, checks on postal, express and cross-border e-commerce shipments, and shop patrols, but gave no figures [5]. We have not found Guangdong figures for any of the four operations. The chart shows one side of a three-sided effort.

The Mainland is moving the same way

The Mainland side of the border is tightening in parallel. China’s customs administration says it seized 18,500 batches and 54.38 million items of suspected infringing goods in the first three quarters of 2026, approved 27,802 IP recordations, and ran its “Longteng 2026” campaign alongside a separate action on cross-border e-commerce channels [9]. In October the national IP office and customs issued joint opinions under which the IP office will pass trademark and patent data to customs to make recordation easier, and customs will report back on rights recorded with it and cases where goods were confiscated [10].

Put together, more of the checking now happens at the points where small consignments are consolidated, and the services on each side of the border are sharing what they find.

What this means for a brand

The 9 November commitment to work with rights holders is only as useful as the rights holders who answer. A few practical points follow.

Make sure each service can act on your rights. Mainland customs works from its recordation system, and the new data-sharing arrangement is meant to make recording easier. If your marks are not recorded with China’s customs, that is the first gap to close, because Mainland officers check exports as well as imports. In Hong Kong and Macao, officers need a rights holder they can reach who will examine suspected goods and confirm them quickly. Check that the contact details each service holds for you are current, and that someone is actually there to respond.

Give officers something to work with. Product identification guides, current packaging, known counterfeit features and the routes you have seen matter more now that the three services are sharing intelligence. Hong Kong’s results show the main detection point is courier and logistics premises, so guidance that helps an officer recognise a suspect small parcel is worth more than a glossy brand deck.

Treat a seizure as the start of an investigation. A detained parcel stops one shipment. The consignor details, the courier account and the logistics company behind it point to whoever packed and sent it. Online monitoring and takedowns will find the listings; the stock, the packers and the people who profit are found offline, through test purchases traced to dispatch addresses, inquiries at the premises and, where the evidence supports it, raids with the authorities. Few of the people behind these consignments are being caught at the border, so that follow-up is where a brand can add most.

Ask what happened next. Cases and seized items show enforcement activity, not results. Where your goods are involved, find out whether a case went to prosecution and what the outcome was, and keep a record, because that history will shape how much effort is worth putting into each route.

Sources

1. Hong Kong Government. Customs holds Sixth Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Customs IP Enforcement Cooperation Meeting. Published 2026-11-10. English. Accessed 11 November 2026.
2. China News Service. Report on the sixth Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao customs IP enforcement cooperation meeting. Published 2026-11-10. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.
3. Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Customs, Guangdong and Macao customs joint operation results. Published 2026-01-16. English. Accessed 11 November 2026.
4. Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Customs, Guangdong and Macao customs joint operation results. Published 2026-05-01. English. Accessed 11 November 2026.
5. Macao Customs. First 2026 Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao joint operation against infringing goods. Published 2026-04-28. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.
6. RTHK. Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao customs joint operation seizes about 38,000 suspected counterfeit items. Published 2026-08-05. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.
7. Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Customs, Guangdong and Macao customs joint operation results. Published 2026-10-29. English. Accessed 11 November 2026.
8. Ministry of Commerce IPR portal. Report on the 2025 Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao customs IP cooperation meeting in Dongguan. Published 2025-10. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.
9. 21st Century Business Herald. China customs IP enforcement, first three quarters of 2026. Published 2026-11-02. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.
10. China National Intellectual Property Administration. Joint opinions with the General Administration of Customs on coordinated IP protection. Published 2026-10-14. Chinese. Accessed 11 November 2026.