VITALY KOROLEV: VIOLATIONS BY THE AUTHORITIES IN SARATOV REGION REDUCED BY 30%

It is one of the major goals of the National Competition Development Plan

On 20 June 2019, Deputy Head of FAS Vitaly Korolev was on a working visit to the Saratov region, where he had a meeting with Governor Valery Radaev.  They discussed how the regions is fulfilling the National Competition Development Plan, particularly, mainstreaming and approving the Action Plan (Road Map) for developing competition in accord with the fresh Regional Competition Development Standard. Deputy Head of FAS pointed out at the positive trends in Saratov in this field.

“Competition development in the Saratov region is reaching a brand new level. It is essential that Saratov regional authorities pay close attention to these issues”, stated Deputy Head of FAS.

Then Vitaly Korolev and Chairman of Saratov regional Government, Alexander Strelyukhin had a meeting with regional executive bodies.

Last year the region determined the key targets for competition development. Amendments were made to the regulations of Saratov executive bodies obligating to undertake competition support efforts on the relevant markets.

Saratov is also 100% successful in implementing the antimonopoly compliance system by the authorities.

“Also, the share of procurement from small and medium business increased in 2018 in comparison with 2017 - from 33.79 % to 41.53% accordingly, and the number of violations of the antimonopoly law by the authorities reduced by 30%”, informed Vitaly Korolev.

As an example that can be extrapolated to other regions, he emphasized the project on the “Service model for support of small and medium entrepreneurship in the Saratov region”. As a result, “My Business” Entrepreneurial Centre is formed in the Regional Business-Incubator that combines resources of all infrastructure entities.  86 infrastructure services, 90 public and municipal services are accessible as “one-window” at five business-desks of the Multifunctional Centre for Providing Public and Municipal Services. An additional business-window is open at the Multifunctional Centre in Volsk one-company town. Overall, 18 windows of the Multifunctional Centre are already opened in the Saratov region (Saratov, Engels, Balakovo, and Petrovsk and Volsk company towns), where around 70,000 petitions from small business were filed in 2017-2018.

The group of children and youth aged 5 - 18 who receive educational services in private educational establishments of additional education increases every year by 2% in the region. In 2018, Saratov Regional Ministry of Education carried out a broad awareness support of the private sector on registering licenses for educational services and access to budgetary funds.

Head of Saratov OFAS Lyudmila Borisova discussed the practice of applying the antimonopoly law in the Saratov region.  She paid special attention to the comments of Saratov OFAS regarding the key targets for developing competition on the markets of regular road passenger transportation services ion municipal and inter-municipal routes.

Deputy Head of FAS thanked Alexander Strelyukhin and representatives of regional authorities for cooperation in their competition development efforts in the region.

Vitaly Korolev awarded a medal of the Federal Antimonopoly Service “For Distinguished Service, III Degree” to FAS merited expert Nikolai Remizov who was one of the originators of establishing the antimonopoly body in the Saratov region and served as OFAS Head for over 22 years.