OREANDA-NEWS. On March 30, 2009 the FAS Russia's Expert Council on Developing Competition in Information Technologies got together for its first session, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The main themes of discussion included: competitive environment on the Russian market of high-technology information services and its development, opportunities for improving the mechanism of competitive bidding in state and municipal procurement as an effective instrument for advancement of IT business, and using the FAS Russia's powers for protecting intellectual property and copyright.

Anatoly Golomolzin, Deputy Head of FAS Russia, and the Council Chairman gave a presentation on the objective and tasks of the Expert Council. Other presentations at the session were given by: Nikolay Komlev (Executive Director, Information and Computer Technologies Industry Association), Dmitry Sokolov (Executive Director Non-Profit Partnership of Software Suppliers) and Andrei Koshkon (Vice-President, "Asteros" Group). Considerable interest towards the work of the Expert Council was shown by Nikolay Pryanishnikov (Head of the Russian office of Microsoft), Boris Nuraliev (Director, 1С) and Victor Naumov (Partner, Salans). In general, all participants emphasized relevancy and importance of the Council's activities.

The Expert Council suggested several measures aimed at developing information exchange among the market participants, expert community and the authorities, referring in particular, to a public discussion in mass media on the need to promote competition in this sector of the economy. The Expert Council raised the issues of desirability of expert examination of the documents and normative legal acts by the Council, involving the concerned parties, experts and representatives of the governmental agencies; and need for market participants to actively approach FAS Russia and other specialized governmental agencies to protect their legitimate interests.

Summing up the session, it was decided that the Expert Council would start jointly forming the agenda of future sessions to discuss the most pressing and important issues, resolving which, in particular by the FAS Russia's efforts, would enable the most efficient advancement of competition on the market of information technologies. The Expert Council will additionally discuss the issues of IT-support of competitive bidding for state and municipal procurement, as well as specifics of state and municipal procurement of the IT-products. The Expert Council approved the initiative on creating a working group for elaborating methodological documentation and discussing enforcement practice related to unfair competition on the IT market.

It was also decided to further discuss the main markets of the IT-sector. At the next session, the Expert Council will analyze the situation on the market of the services for providing Internet access, particularly in the context of eliminating digital inequality between various regions in Russia.