NEW LEVEL OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION WITH AZERBAIJAN

Head of FAS Igor Artemiev held talks with the newly appointed Minister of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mikayil Jabbarov

During the meeting, Mr. Jabbarov informed that as a result of reorganizing public administration in Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Economy has “absorbed” some other bodies - the Ministry of Taxes, the State Property Committee, the State Antimonopoly Agency and the Consumer Market Agency. He described some economic characteristics of Azerbaijan and expressed hope for productive collaboration and experience exchange with FAS.

“The goal set for us is to create an efficient antimonopoly body and form the necessary regulatory framework. We expect partnership and cooperation, we want to learn and exchange experiences. If our experience can be useful to you somehow, we are at your disposal”, said Mr. Jabbarov.

Head of FAS Igor Artemiev informed the Azerbaijan colleagues about the latest FAS legislative initiatives – the tariff regulation reform, forced licensing, antimonopoly compliance and the “fifth antimonopoly - digital” package.

He emphasized the work of Russian antimonopoly body on socially important markets, in particular, abolishing roaming in Russia and reducing prices for medicinal drugs, facilitated by improvements in the pricing system.

“Thanks to our efforts, prices for some drugs decreased by more than threefold. We analyzed drug prices in more than 20 reference countries and developed the following approach – if one of these countries has the lowest price, it should be taken as the cup price in Russia. And the second important step – a draft law on forced licensing; we have been promoting it for nearly ten years and it has been recently approved by the Government. The essence of the draft law is that if for some reason a manufacturer cannot supply vital or essential drugs to Russia, or intends to supply them at a monopolistically high price, Russian Government can grant the right to manufacture the drug to a Russian laboratory, paying fair royalty to the right-holder”, explained Igor Artemiev.

Considerable attention was paid to developing institutional and staffing potential of competition authorities, and cooperation with the business community.

Head of FAS highlighted the formats of possible collaboration such as the CIS Headquarters, ICAP, EAEU, BRICS +, and invited the Azerbaijan colleagues to joint the efforts of any of them.

To intensify bilateral cooperation, Igor Artemiev suggested considering a possibility of an inter-agency Memorandum on Cooperation in the field of antimonopoly policy.

Rufat Mamedov, Deputy Minister of Economy, the Azerbaijan Republic; Khafiz Zeinalov, Head of International Economic Cooperation, the Ministry of Economy; Anar Bairamov, Head of Protocol, the Tax Ministry; Shovgi Mekhdizade, an economic advisor, the Embassy of Azerbaijan in the Russian Federation; Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov;  Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin; Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova;  Deputy Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation – Head of Economic Integration with the CIS, Elena Privezentseva, were also present at the meeting.