SYNCHRONIZING THE NATIONAL COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT PLAN AND THE NATIONAL PROJECTS IS A FAS PRIORITY

Head of FAS summed up the outcome of FAS recent efforts and highlighted the main problems and prospects for competition development in Russia

“Evaluating the state of competition in general as well as in particular sectors and sphere is an essential tool for developing and implementing economic policy by the government. The Presidential Order, the National Competition Development Plan,  the State Council no competition support and a federal Road Map for the key segments of the economy have formed the legal basis for competition development”, emphasized Head of FAS Igor Artemiev at an extended session of FAS Colelgium on 16 September 2019.

Summing up execution of the above documents, Igor Artemiev said that the Road Map for competition development is 41.5%.fulfilled within the designated period.

He also stressed the significance of the regional aspect of competition support:

“All regions in Russia have determined the key markets, formalized the importance of competition support work in the regulations on the authorities, and implemented antimonopoly compliance. Now the work is undertaken to mainstream the Regional Road Maps”.

Head of FAS mentioned that violations by the authorities statistically decreased by 14%; public procurement from small business reached 29.7%, with the National Plan’s target – 31% by 2020; a similar target for state-run companies was 12.1%, tor each 18% by 2020.

Igor Artemiev also covered tariff regulation.

“In the past four years we have done colossal work in this area. We have managed to formalize the principles of tariff regulation for all sectors of control over natural monopolies. Opportunities to exceed the cap tariff levels in the housing-and-utilities and the electric power industry in the regions are eliminated. It is especially importance since it concerns all our citizens. The “tariff in exchange for investments” principle is introduced, stimulating entities to decrease their costs and improve performance”, reportedHead of FAS.

In his opinion, however, tariff regulation is still not transparent enough. It can be resolved upon adopting a common Law on state tariff regulation.

Igor Artemiev also informed about establishing a modern system to counter cartels.

“A threat of criminal punishment for cartels is now real. 34 criminal cases are opened upon FAS materials, of which 15 cases under Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, others are various corruption and office abuse cases related to collusion with ordering parties at tenders and auctions”, pointed out Head of FAS.

Regarding to competition development issues, Head of FAS emphasized slow deployment of electronic price comparison systems, strengthening the state positions in the financial sector, non-competitive offering of natural resources to economic entities, absence of common procedures for public property sale, non-transparent approval and execution of investment programmes by natural monopolies and procurement procedures of state-run companies.

To solve these and other issues, Igor Artemiev set the following tasks to the antimonopoly body. First, continue robust implementation of the Order of the president of the Russian Federation on the main directions of the state policy for developing competition.  Second, prepare and adopt a new, 2021 - 2025 National Plan to ensure competition development in Russia at the federal, regional, and municipal levels. Also, measures must be undertaken to decartelize the economy, continue developing exchange trading and digitalize tariff regulation.