OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2012. A delegation of the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, led by Deputy Director of the Antimonopoly Bureau, of the Ministry of Commerce, Wu Zhengguo, repaid a visit to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The delegation of the Ministry of Commerce had a meeting with Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovsky. The delegation also held a number of working meetings with top officers of FAS Legal Department, Analytical Department and the Department for International Economic Cooperation, where the parties discussed the prospects of cooperation, the main directions of the agencies’ efforts in the field of competition policy, and informed each other about the main objectives, authority and the structure of their agencies, as well as antimonopoly enforcement in the two countries. The delegation of the Ministry of Commerce described specifics of the system of antimonopoly regulation in China.

The Head of FAS Analytical Department, Alexei Sushkevich, and Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Roman Pliev, shared experience of their Departments and gave a detailed account of anti-cartel work, control over economic concentration, and discussed the issues of threshold values and pricing. The FAS officers explained the procedure for considering mergers, economic analysis of economic concentration transactions, and answered numerous questions from their Chinese colleagues.

The Head of the FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova, discussed the latest events in FAS work in the international context, cooperation with international organizations and integration associations, bilateral cooperation with foreign competition authorities and contractual basis of FAS Russia relations with foreign partners. Lesya Davydova pointed out: “Tremendous efforts undertaken by FAS in this area helps improving the national competition law and enforcement on the basis of the best international practices”.

The parties discussed further prospects of cooperation between the two agencies in competition policy, particular, a draft Memorandum of Understanding in the antimonopoly field between the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia and the Ministry of Commerce, of the People’s Republic of China. Andrey Tsarikovsky emphasized: “Russia has always considered cooperation with China as one of its main priority, and progressive advancement of interaction between our agencies will make a considerable contribution in improvement of commercial-and-economic climate and good neighbourly relations between our countries”.

As part of its visit to Russia, the delegation of the Ministry of Commerce also visited St Petersburg, where on 7th September 2012 it had negotiations with the Heads of FAS Department on the Leningrad region, Vadim Vladimirov, and the Office of FAS Russia in St Petersburg, Alexandr Belyaev, to study experience of regional FAS offices in the field of antimonopoly regulation.