The administration on Friday 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 Organization.

Along with China and Russia, the other seven countries targeted are Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.

The administration named another 31 countries to a lower-level watch list, indicating that it has concerns about copyright violations in those nations but that they don't warrant the highest level of scrutiny.

Because of improvements in their efforts to protect U.S. 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 list.

In releasing the annual report, which is required by Congress, U.S. 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," Schwab 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.

Stan McCoy, assistant U.S. trade representative for intellectual property, told reporters in a briefing that both China and Russia had made improvements in protecting intellectual property over the past year but that a number of issues remain.

Discussions between the United States and Russia over improving copyright protections have been a key sticking point in negotiations over that country's bid to become a member of the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based organization that regulates world trade.

The United States has a World Trade Organization case pending against China in which it has accused the country of doing too little to crack down on rampant piracy of American music, movies, computer programs and other products.

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