OREANDA-NEWS. January 13, 2014. A year ago, on 28th December 2012, the Government of the Russian Federation approved the “Road Map” on “Developing Competition and Improving the Antimonopoly Policy”.

The “Road Map” is an action plan devised under the framework of the national business initiative. It establishes the principles of competition development in the Russian Federation and identifies the priority sectors and system-wide measures to be implemented on a regular basis.

On 17th August 2013, upon the instructions of the Government of the Russian Federation, FAS was appointed the principal body to coordinate actions of the assigned executors and co-executors of the Road Map.

Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov, emphasized that: “Efforts undertaken by FAS as the “Road Map” coordinator allows to evaluate the situation with executing the action plan, in particular, “highlight” problematic issues and determine the main avenues to resolve them”.

To these purposes, in 2013 FAS held a series of meetings involving all 15 federal executive bodies assigned as the “Road Map” executers as well as “Strategic Initiative Agency for Promoting New Projects” Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization.

In October 2013 less than half of the measures were implemented; however, by the end of 2013, as Andrey Tsyganov stated, a positive trend is emerging.

According to the Head of FAS Analytical Department, Alexey Sushkevich, the deadlines for executing certain “Road Map” measures were corrected by the orders (decisions) issued by the Government of the Russian Federation and now go beyond 2013. The relevant changes to the “Road Map” are being drafted.

In 2014 FAS will continue coordinating the work of the assigned executors and co-executors of the action plan for the “Road Map”.

The priorities for 2014 include:

- Implementing the best practices for developing competition in the subjects of the Russian Federation

- Decreasing the state sector in the economy

- Developing competition in the infrastructure sectors, including natural monopolies

- Developing competition in procurement

- Simplifying activities of businesses under the framework of antimonopoly regulation

- Increasing the level of consumer rights protection

- Creating a mechanism of implementing the “Road Map” for developing competition

- Implementing sector-specific measures towards developing competition (on the markets of medicines, medical services, air transportation, communications services, pre-school education, oil products).