OREANDA-NEWS. March 14, 2011. Vladimir Kachalin, Assistant to the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), took part in the sessions of the Competition Policy and Law Group, of the Economic Committee and the Trade and Investments Committee, organised within the framework of the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Vladimir Kachalin made presentations on “Responsible Agencies, Goals and Priorities of Competition Advocacy in Russia” and “The Third Antimonopoly Package of Amendments to the Russian Competition Law”.

At the sessions of the Group of competition law and policy Vladimir Kachalin commented the following projects of FAS Russia:

- “Research on information exchange in applying the antimonopoly law in APEC space: phase I”;

- “Developing competition in seaports as a factor of sustainable development of the sea transportation sector”.

APEC Trade and Investments Committee discussed specific features of the FAS Russia project: “Electronic competitive bidding as a measure towards trade liberalization and combatting corruption in state procurement in the APEC states”. If APEC Budget Committee approves the projects, FAS Russia plans to start them in 2011.

These projects are important for development of the Russian economy as they are aimed at improving performance of particular sectors of the economy and efficiency of government agencies.

Overall, participation of FAS Russia’s representatives in such forums facilitates cooperation between Russia and APEC economies in the field of competition policy and enforcement. It helps develop specific measures to increase efficiency and sustainability of national economic policies. An important goal of such cooperation is that in the period of the global financial crisis active competition policy is one of the factors maintaining high rates of economic growth and progressive changes in the economy.