FAS AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHELYABINSK REGION SHALL SIGN AN EXTENDED AGREEMENT

Said Deputy Head of FAS Alexei Dotsenko during the working visit to the Chelyabinsk region

On 24 October 2019, Deputy Head of FAS Alexei Dotsenko and Governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Alexei Teksler, took part in a meeting in the capital city of South Urals to discuss the progress in executing the National Competition Development Plan.

Head of the Chelyabinsk region emphasized that competition development is a priority for the regional authorities. “For me, it is one of the most important tasks. We need competition. It is necessary to observe antimonopoly law, executing the National Projects, for which considerable financial funds are allocated. It helps improve the quality of goods and services and facilitate economic development”, pointed out Alexei Teksler.

“FAS keeps saying how harmful is monopolization, and we are glad that the Government of the Chelyabinsk region not only understands it but also executes it in practice. Competition development facilitates improvement of regional economies, particularly, it relates to increasing goods supply to the market and creating new jobs”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS. “In the near future, together with the regional leadership, we will start working on a new, deeper agreement for developing competition in the region that will cover information cooperation and the measures that will form the foundation of an updated Road Map”.

Alexei Dotsenko reminded that in 2018 FAS andthe Government of the Chelyabinsk regionhad signed an Agreement on Cooperation under the frame of executing the National Competition Development Plan.

“Last year, the Government of the Chelyabinsk region determined 33 markets where robust efforts have been undertaken for the whole year. The key targets are achieved on some of them. The new Competition Development Standard, adopted this year, however, made corrections to the list of goods, and in the near future all regions should adjust their Road Maps accordingly. From the FAS side, we are always open to a dialogue with regions on this issue and hope that our collaboration in this area will help draft a document enabling good achievements in the Chelyabinsk region”, pointed out Alexei Dotsenko.

Summing up the results of the work of the Chelyabinsk region forexecuting the National Competition Development Plan, Oksana Kuznetsova, Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, said that “the regional leadership has managed to achieve good results. Violations of the antimonopoly law by the authorities in the region are reduced by 38%. The share of procurement involving small and medium companies is growing. Their share is higher that in Russia on average and exceeds 37%. What is essential, we see that the share of state participation in the economy is decreasing – the number of unitary enterprises in the region has gone down by 12%”.

Deputy Head of FAS Alexei Dotsenko added that in the near future FAS must draft and approve a new National Plan for 2021 – 2025 to develop competition in Russia at the federal, regional and municipal levels.

“All our initiatives and intensive collaboration to implement the current National Plan will be continued”, summed up Alexei Dotsenko.