OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2008. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) advocates the need to observe competitive conditions in allocating 2008 quotas for importing meat to the Russian Federation, and to allocate quotas through bidding, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Earlier FAS Russia agreed on the draft Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "On Introducing Amendments to № 732 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 5th December 2005", prepared by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development. The draft Decree takes into account the FAS Russia's position on the issue of regulating meat import to the Russian Federation.

Elaborating its position on the issue of changing the quota allocation mechanism, FAS Russia repeatedly favored the access of new foreign trade actors to allocating majority of the quotes.

In the opinion of the Head of FAS Russia Igor Artemyev, otherwise it would create conditions for eliminating competition among considerable part of meat importers and engaging them in anticompetitive actions - fixing prices on imported products, which can have adverse impact on prices in the Russian meat market.

In this context, FAS Russia has supported allocation of pork quotas in proportion to the import in 2007. It will allow new actors, who were actively involved in off-quotas pork import in 2007, paying increased duties, and who proved serious intentions to operate on the market, to participate in allocating pork quotas set for 2008.

Furthermore, FAS Russia stands for transition from a "historic" principle of allocating quotas for the meat import to the Russian Federation among the importers to the principle of quotas allocation through bidding, which should start in 2010. It will ensure competitive conditions for quota allocation, entry of new participants to the market and additional protection of domestic producers.