OREANDA-NEWS. November 27, 2013. A delegation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) led by the Head of FAS Igor Artemiev had working meetings with the Heads of the antimonopoly authorities of Brazil, India, China and the Republic of South Africa, as well as with the Head of the Competition and Consumer Policy Branch of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The meeting took place during the visit of the FAS delegation to Delhi (India) to take part in the III BRICS International Competition Conference on “Competition Enforcement in BRICS countries: Problems and Goals”, organized by competition authorities of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

At the meeting of FAS delegation with Deputy Head of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) of the Ministry of Justice of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Mr. Alessandro Luis Octaviani, Igor Artemiev proposed to carry out coherent policy under the BRICS framework as well as bilateral format towards suppressing and preventing unfair business practices of big international companies, particularly in car manufacturing, oil products and pharmaceuticals.

Meeting with the Chairman of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), Ashok Chawla, participants emphasized progressive advancement of cooperation between FAS and CCI in pursuance of the Memorandum of Understanding signed on 16th December 2011 in Delhi.

The India’s delegation was especially interested in the efforts of the International Working Group for studying competition issues in the pharmaceutical sector, which was formed by FAS jointly with the Italian Competition Authority. FAS and CCI reached cooperation arrangements under the framework of the Working Group.

CCI representatives expressed their interest in continuing the work on preparing a Memorandum on Cooperation between the antimonopoly authorities of BRICS countries to be signed at the next BRICS Competition Conference in 2015.

At the meeting with Deputy Minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) of the People’s Republic of China (SAIC), Sun Hongzhi, the parties summed up the results of cooperation for the past two years and discussed the near-term prospects, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding between FAS and SAIC on implementing the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Cooperation in the field of unfair competition and antimonopoly policy in 2014-2015.

“Competition authorities must intensify their cooperation because they directly influence economic policy”, emphasized Igor Artemiev.

At the meeting with the Acting Commissioner of Competition Commission of the Republic of South Africa, Mr. Т. Bonakele, South Africa supported FAS initiative to intensify result-oriented cooperation between competition authorities of the BRICS states, particularly – to from standing working groups to study the state of competition in socially-important sectors of the economy.

Russian delegation discussed with the Head of the Competition and Consumer Policy Branch of the UNCTAD Mr. Hassan Qaqaya further development of cooperation between FAS and UNCTAD in the course of the annual sessions of UNCTAD Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Policy, as well as through other UNCTAD projects.

In particular, Mr. Hassan Qaqaya emphasized a considerable interest of UNCTAD Competition Branch in learning more about the work of FAS Resource-an-Training Centre in Kazan. The parties agreed to organize a fact-finding visit at the beginning of 2014 to examine possibilities of using the Centre for UNCTAD events.

The parties also discussed possibility of organizing a meeting of representatives of the CIS member-sates as part of a session of UNCTAD Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Policy in July 2014.