FAS Expert Council put forward proposals for a draft “Road Map” on developing the agro-industrial complex
On 21 February 2017, Deputy Head of the Antimonopoly Service, Andrey Tsyganov, chaired FAS Expert Council on agro-industrial complex. Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development, sectoral unions and food product manufacturers.
The Expert Council discussed a draft Plan for developing competition in the agro-industrial complex of the Russian Federation for 2017-2018*, that included measures in the following areas:
- Minimizing logistical and infrastructure restrictions
- Developing exchange and off-exchange trading with agricultural products, raw materials and food products
- Ensuring non-discriminatory conditions for providing state support
- Enhancing competition on the seed market
- Improving public and municipal procurement and some other measures.
Having studied the document, participants proposed to made several additions and clarifications in the wordings, concerning such fields as public procurement, agro-logistics and public support.
Andrey Tsyganov emphasized: “The Road Map measures should facilitate investment attractiveness of the agro-industrial complex, stimulating public and private investments. So far there are practically no professional investors in the agro-industrial complex, particularly, due to informational closeness of producers and the authorities that provide support to agricultural producers”.
He added that implementing measures designed to support cooperation in the rural areas will enable small farms to strengthen their negotiating capacity with both input suppliers and agricultural products processors, as well as with retail chains. These and other issues will be discussed by FAS with the Ministry of Agriculture under the standard schedule. Summing up the meeting, Andrey Tsyganov informed that FAS will continue refining the draft jointly with the Ministry.
* Based on FAS Report on the State of Competition, the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation instructed 10 ministries to approve 2017-2018 Competition Action Plans (“Road Maps”) for the relevant industries by 1 March 2017 upon consultations with FAS and the Ministry of Economic Development.