OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2009. "Competition policy and consumer rights, both in Russia and the CIS member-states, remain inseparably connected, as the main goals of work in these fields are protecting legitimate rights of consumers and producers of goods and services, and preventing consumer fraud by unfair economic entities in order to obtain unjustified competitive advantages", said Igor Artemyev, the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) at the international conference "Important issues of consumer rights in the CIS member-states in the time of crisis", organized by the Federal Service for Consumer Rights and Human Well-Being, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The conference was attended by the leadership and experts of Rospotrebnadzor Russia, FAS Russia, the Executive CIS Committee, officers of the Consumer Union of the Russian Federation, the International Confederation of Consumer Associations, representatives of government bodies and non-government organizations for consumer rights from CIS.

Igor Artemyev welcomed the conference participants of behalf of the Interstate Council for Antimonopoly Policy (MSAP), which he chairs, and made a presentation on "Developing competition to protect consumer rights in the period of overcoming the financial and economic crisis".

Continuity of these two areas is confirmed by developing cooperation under the framework of MSAP, which regularly discusses consumer rights in the CIS. MSAP made a decision to form the Advisory Council for Consumer Rights at MSAP; the constitutive meeting of which will be held at the conference.

Reference:
Cooperation of the CIS member states on consumer rights is based on the Agreement on the Main Areas of Cooperation between the CIS Member-States in the Area of Consumer Rights, signed in 2000 at the initiative of the Interstate Council for Antimonopoly Policy.

The objective of the Agreement is to create legal and organizational framework for cooperation between the Parties towards coherent policy on consumer rights, aimed at creating equal conditions for citizens of the CIS member states for protecting their interests from unfair activities of economic entities operating in the states - signatories to the Agreement.