ANDREY TSYGANOV: LIFE IS MORE COMFORTABLE WITHOUT VIOLATIONS

Regional workshop on enforcement, intermediary achievements of the National Plan’s targets in the Pskov region, and the importance of integrating every National project with the National Competition Development Plan

On 25 July 2019, during a working visit to the Pskov region, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov took part in a meeting of Deputy Governor of the Pskov region, Ninel Salagaeva, on implementing the National Competition Development Plan in the region.

“Our toady’s meeting is of a working nature, we are not going to report achievements but rather will focus on the problems and the efforts to resolve them and on what awaits us in the future”, started his speech Deputy Head of FAS.

Andrey Tsyganov informed that FAS activities are based on No. 618 Order of the President of Russia that approved 2018-2020 National Plan for Developing Competition in the Russian Federation.

“The National Plan is aimed at broader goals that simply competition it is designed to make sure that us, as consumers, live better, business efficiency is enhanced and Russian economy develops faster and achieves the breakthrough that the President ofthe Russian Federation talked about repeatedly”, underlined the speaker.

Deputy Head of FAS outlined the objectives of the National Competition Development Plan and the work undertaken by the Government of Russia to provide methodological guidelines and result-oriented support of such work, including Road Maps for Developing Competition in a number of sectors and the new version of the Competition Development Standard.

Andrey Tsyganov described in detail Pskov results for 2018 on the National Plan’s targets. First of all, he emphasized a growing number of violations of the antimonopoly law by the regional authorities.

“I agree with the Governor’s position that such number of violations exposed by Pskov OFAS is related openness and transparency of the work of the new regional authority. Some representatives of regional government used to attempt concealing things; now they work openly and earlier concealed errors are revealed. Such figures on the growth of violations are partly associated with the current estimate method. At the moment FAS classifies as gross violations both those that the authorities do not wish to eliminate as well as those eliminated after warnings. We consider making changed to the estimate method because it is wrong to classify something that is already corrected and does not harm as gross violations”, believes Andrey Tsyganov.

Discussing development of the regional economy under the frame of executing the National Competition Development Plan, Deputy Head of FAS pointed out that Pskov has more than 4% growth of the procurement share involving small and medium companies and socially oriented non-profit entities (compared with 2017), and the number of unitary enterprises dropped down by 2 %.

“Overall, FAS evaluates positively the work undertaken in the region on achieving the National Plan’s targets, in terms of both the figures that should be achieved and how the work is being done. Such estimated figures as consumer satisfaction with particular goods or services provided by companies in various sectors of the economy in the Pskov region are increasing. 2018 monitoring showed that consumer satisfaction in retail trade with pharmaceuticals reached 100 %. The same is true for communications services. It means that in spite of various issues related to abolishing roaming, transition to digital TV broadcasting, consumers give pretty positive assessment of the marketing our opinion, it is a very good and right result”,  commented Andrey Tsyganov.

Deputy Head of FAS drew attention that the National Projects approved by the Presidential Order [1] must be implemented, particularly, through competition policy. To reach the best results, competitive mechanisms of engaging economic entities in the National Projects should be introduced, measures of each National Project should be integrated with the National Competition Development Plan, use competitive approaches to pursuing the National Projects at the regional level should be observed, and FAS should be engaged in choosing sets of the National Projects’ measures.

“We are glad that our collaboration has established; that FAS assistance and support are taken favourably by Pskov regional authorities. Hopefully, the work will continue so that the National Projects are pro-competitive and participants are involved on the competitive basis under the frame of the National Projects”, stressed the speaker.

Deputy Head of FAS emphasized that “any measure starts with the powers of FAS and its regional Offices and continues by them:  public procurement, property lease, construction, connection to networks, state support, tariff policy. FAS and its regional Offices play an important role in all these areas, particularly, as a control-and-supervision body. FAS is instructed to focus attention on possible problems that can emerge exactly under the frame of the National Projects”.

Finally Deputy Head of FAS stated: “We would very much wish that with explanatory and preventative measures we can avoid violations of the law and its serious consequences. We believe that enfrcmenet, control voer the law ramins FAS priority. But it is more comfortable for us to live in the conditions when such violations do not take place”.

Head of Pskov OFAS Olga Milonaets pointed out that “joint efforts are not only signing documents. We must move on and continue collaboration”.

She pointed out that a growing number of violations of the antimonopoly law by the authorities in the Pskov region concerns, first of all, two markets: passenger transportation and the housing-and-utility complex. Head of Pskov OFAS asked representatives of the specialized Committees of the regional authority to pay attention to competition problems on these markets and eliminate violations in these sectors of the economy within the statutory period, which in the future should decrease the share of state participation on them.  

Olga Milonaets highlighted positive dynamics and reduction of violations by the authorities in HI 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. Head of Pskov OFAS recommended the specialized Committees of the regional authority to consider including additional controversial markets in the Road Map: the market of social services and children’s’ leisure and health improvement.

“We have managed to reach the 100% target on 23 markets from the chosen 35. I think we will mage these as well. Certainly, it is necessary to study possible options, how to allow private business to such a significant market as children’s’ leisure, without concerns about deteriorated quality of such services. Definitely, there should be solutions. And we must work on them so that tomorrow our kids live better than today”, said Head of Pskov OFAS.