Washington: The Bush administration is accusing India, China, Russia and six other nations of failing to protect American producers of movies, computer software and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy.

The administration today placed the nine countries on a "priority watch list" that will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions, if the administration decides to pursue complaints before the World Trade Organisation.

In addition to India, China and Russia, the other six countries targeted were Argentina, Chile, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.

The administration named another 31 countries to a lower-level watch list, indicating it has concerns about copyright violations in those nations but they don t warrant the highest level of scrutiny.

Because of improvements in their efforts to protect US intellectual property rights, four countries Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Ukraine were taken off the "priority" list where they were last year and placed on the lower-level watch list.

In releasing the annual report, which is required by Congress, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said that copyright piracy is "one of the central challenges facing the global economy."

"Pirates and counterfeiters don't just steal ideas, they steal jobs and too often they threaten our health and safety," she said in a statement.

This year's report devoted attention to what it described as the growing problem of counterfeited pharmaceuticals and other products that threaten the health and safety of consumers around the world.

Source : PTI