NATIONAL PROJECTS SHOULD BE BASED ON THE COMPETITION PRINCIPLES

Head of FAS Igor Artemiev emphasized the need to integrate the National Projects and the National Competition Development Plan

On 25 October 2019, at the Plenary session of the XI Conference – “Antimonopoly Regulation in Russia” organized by the “Vedomosti” newspaper and the Antimonopoly Experts Association with support of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Head of FAS Igor Artemiev described the progress in the work on fulfilling No. 618 Order of the president of the Russian Federation “On the main directions of the state policy for competition development”.

According to Head of FAS, “regions are less conservative than expected”: they have actively got into gear to develop competition, approved the key targets for competition development and made amendments to the regulations of executive bodies.

Igor Artemiev said that “without own monetary value, competition opens an opportunity for big future profit”.

That is why violations by the authorities decreased by 14% in 2018, the share of public procurement involving small and medium companies was 29.7% and the share of procurement by particular types of legal entities – 12.1%.

As of 1 October 2019, 46% of the National Plan are fulfilled and 16% - partly fulfilled.

As examples of competition development measures in regions, Igor Artemiev mentioned the practices of creating online-sites foe small procurement in Moscow, “the suppliers portal” in the Krasnodar region, “Verkhnekemie” Innovations-and-Production Business Incubator in the Perm region, an “e-store” for small procurement in the Novosibirsk region, a reduced land tax rate for the companies involved in the priority investment projects in Bashkortostan,  e-services in construction and a pilot project – “MSP Corporation” JSC for “growing” small and medium business in the Khabarovsk region, as well as the “500/10000” programme for establishing at least 500 small companies in the rural areas of the Belgorod region.

At the same time, he underlined an insufficient interest of some federal industry departments in competition development.

Talking about the significance of synergy in execution of the National Projects and the National Competition Development Plan, Igor Artemiev stressed that both have a common goal to develop and ensure a sustainable growth of the economy and cannot be fulfilled efficiently when taken separately: “We must make sure that the National Projects are based on the fundamental principles of competition. It is not only competitive selection principles but also development of private business. Without integrating the two major plans, the outcome can be sheer budgetary funds spending”.