OREANDA-NEWS. May 06, 2013. The Expert Council of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) on Agro-Industrial Complex discussed development of competition on agro-food markets in the context of establishing the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space.

The session was opened by Deputy Head of FAS Russia Andrey Tsyganov who informed the Expert Council about new program documents and legislative initiatives in the field of competition policy aimed at developing competition, particular on the agro-food markets, and enhancing efficiency of the work of antimonopoly bodies.

The Board Chairman of “SOUYZMOLOKO”, Andrey Danilenko, outlined the problems of the milk industry within the Customs Union. One of such problems is absence of common technical regulations for dairy products in the Customs Union, which causes unfair competition from certain suppliers of dairy products from Belarus and Kazakhstan who mislead consumers, for example, replacing animal fat with vegetable fat. Andrey Danilenko pointed out that FAS undertakes considerable efforts in this area, but prolonged case investigations and insignificant fines are not sufficient measures for resolving the issue. At the same time, access of Russian companies to the market of our partners limited due to technical barriers. According to Andrey Danilenko, equal conditions must be created for everyone, for which it is necessary to have common technical regulations within the Customs Union: “We give free access to our market and we want the same in return”.

Andrey Danilenko pointed out that we can learn from Kazakhstan and Belarus. For instance, in this country administrative costs and expenses that determine the investment component in the costs of the ready products are much lower than in Russia, which is explained, in particular, by lower prices of state services.

A representative of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Artem Yulegin, outlined the main areas of regulatory policy that are the sources of barriers preventing expansion of mutual trade with food products within the Customs Union: tax legislation, technical regulation, veterinary and phyto-sanitary control, and gave an example from the field of taxation, when VAT for juices from Belarus and Kazakhstan was 18%, and for Russian-made juices - 10%.

Sergey Sukhov, Deputy Director of the Department of Agro-Industrial Policy of the Eurasian Economic Commission, in his turn, indicated inconsistency between the level and the forms of state support for the agro-industrial complex in the states-members of the Customs Union, and emphasized the importance of optimizing support for agriculture in Russia. Sergey Sukhov also raised an issue of jointly exporting the products and of the status of the products “made in the Customs Union”.

The Head of the Executive Committee of the National Meat Association, Sergey Yushin, stated the importance of maintaining the system of privileges within the Common Economic Space, which was granted by the national law to the companies in agro-industry. He also proposed to devise a tri-lateral programme for developing agro-industry within the Customs Union. These measures are aimed at eliminating uncertainty in making long-term investment decisions.

The Expert Council also discussed the draft Federal Law “On Grain Warehouses in General Use”, which was described by a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, Artur Melikyan.

The Experts Council emphasized the importance of adopting the law to increase availability of credit resources for agricultural producers through possibility to use double storage certificate as a charging instrument.

At the end of the meeting, the Head of FAS Department for Control over Chemical Industry, Anna Mirochinenko, reported the results of the efforts of the antimonopoly body for supporting competition on agro-food markets and the market of mineral fertilizers.

“Business has heard the Recommendations for providing non-discriminatory access to mineral fertilizers, devised by FAS in 2012. Transition to market pricing has considerably improved competition conditions on the Russian market. Previously, the majority of producers exported mineral fertilizers, now they are interested in supplies to the domestic market”, commented Anna Mirochinenko. “However, we also would like to get a reasonable estimate of the situation from consumers of mineral fertilizers – we are open to the dialogue”.