The use of pirated software in computers in most Asian countries is declining but more enforcement is needed to make a significant impact on the problem, industry officials said today.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents computer software and hardware firms worldwide, said figures showing the use of illegal software had registered a decline in countries such as China.

"The piracy rates have been decreasing but at a very slow rate. We just need to step up to try and make sure that it's a more significant drop," BSA's director of marketing for Asia, Roland Chan, told AFP .

Chan said the improvement was due to government agencies conducting more raids on companies using illicit software, and greater consumer awareness.

"Governments in Asia for the last few years have begun to realise the importance of cultivating the creative IT industry," Chan said.

"There's been a concerted effort to address software piracy, both through educational campaigns and enforcement campaigns," he said.

Marginal decrease

In China - which has one of the highest rates of pirated software use in Asia - 86 percent of software in computers in 2005 was illegal, down from 92 percent in 2003, he said.

During the same period, illegal software use in Malaysia decreased marginally to 60 percent from 63 percent, which still represented a loss of 149 million dollars to the Malaysian economy in 2005, he said.

Other Asian countries such as Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and India also showed some improvement over the period.

Taiwan, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia showed little change.

Increases in illegal use were registered in Hong Kong - with 54 percent of software illegal in computers in 2005, up from 52 percent in 2003 - and Pakistan, up to 86 percent from 83 percent over the same period.

Figures from 2006 will be out later this month.

Malaysian enforcement officers Monday said they had doubled efforts to conduct raids on companies using counterfeit software, with 12 raids carried out in the first four months of this year, compared to 23 for all of 2006.