ANDREY TSYGANOV: RUSSIA IS OPENED TO FOREIGN INVESTORS

Stated Deputy Head of FAS to members of the Belgiuan - Luxemburg Chamber of Commerce at in event in Moscow

On 10 December 2019, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov held talks with members ofthe Belgian - Luxemburg Chamber of Commerce in Russia (BLCC).

The meeting was chaired by BLCC General Director Oleg Prozorov and focused on freedom of competition and efficient entrepreneurship protection, equal access to goods, operations of natural monopolies.

According to Andrey Tsyganov, FAS is a federal executive body directly accountable to the Government and strictly follow the neutrality principle.

The speaker pointed out that recently FAS has not opened cases against companies form Belgium and Luxemburg for violating the antimonopoly law.

Andrey Tsyganov informed foreign colleagues that FAS has regional Offices in 85 subjects of the Russian Federation, with more than 3500 staff and is one of largest antimonopoly regulators in the world that efficiently controls public procurement, operations of natural monopolies, tariff disputes, pricing in the defence industry and some other spheres.

Deputy Head of FAS described a modern system of countering cartels, where the antimonopoly authority employs digital tools that it developed. He emphasized that cartel agreements are criminally prosecuted in Russia because of their particular danger for the national economy. Most cartel agreements are concluded in such sectors of the economy as construction (29%), pharmaceuticals (16%) and food products (8%). At the same time, in 2018 the number of cartel agreements in Russia decreased (by 9%).

Andrey Tsyganov pointed out that another important FAS objective is ensuring compliance with the rules, procedures and practices of transactions with regard to Russian strategic companies.

“In 11 years of enforcement of the Law on foreign investments, FAS received 606 petitions, of which 245 were approved and only 18 dismissed. Other 261 petitions were returned to the petitioners as not requiring pre-approvals. In our view, this statistics is an obvious sign of the openness of Russia for foreign investments”, concluded Andrey Tsyganov.