OREANDA-NEWS. September 30, 2010. A 3-day workshop “On Competition Issues in Retail Trade” (28th-30th September) opened in Moscow at the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation. The workshop is organized jointly by the OECD Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest (OECD-GVH RCC) and the Federal Antimonopoly service (FAS Russia), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Opening the workshop, Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Russia Andrey Tsarikovskiy pointed out that FAS Russia pays considerable attention to regulating retail market in view of the Law on Trade that has come into effect this year. In the opinion of Mr. Tsarikovskiy, the issues included in the workshop programme are very important for development of antimonopoly enforcement and improving competitive environment in retail sector.

“A workshop on establishing competition in retail is timely and important and is of interest not only for the Russian Federation but also for the EU, the USA and the CIS member-states”, said the Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Russia.

Welcoming addresses were also given by Ms. Andrea Belenyi, General Secretary of Hungarian Competition Authority, and Mr. Joao Azevedo, the Chairman of OECD-GVH RCC.

Ms. Andrea Belenyi talked about the history of creating the OECD-Hungary Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest on the basis of Hungarian Competition Authority and outlines the main milestones in adopting the Trade Act in Hungarian Republic. Passed in 2006, the Act introduced considerable changes to regulation of retailers, who possessed significant market power and attempted to abuse it.

In course of the workshop its participants will discuss pressing issues of antimonopoly regulation of retail in the context of regulating trade networks. Considerable attention will be paid to specific features of analysis of retail markets and evaluation of market power of retail networks as well as control over economic concentration on those markets. The workshop will also cover regulation of relations between product suppliers and retail networks.

These issues will be addresses through lectures of OECD experts and case studies presented by the central Office of FAS Russia and its regional offices and experts from the CIS, specializing in competition policy.

OECD is represented by leading experts of competition authorities from Hungary, France, the UK, Portugal, and the US, who have considerable experience of antimonopoly regulation of retail markets.