OREANDA-NEWS. September 17, 2012. Russia – EC Round Table on the problem of granting state and municipal preferences was held in Kazan, as part of the Competition Day, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.  

Vladimir Mishelovin, the Head of the FAS Department for Control over the Authorities, made a report on “Control over Compliance with Competition Conditions Granting State or Municipal Preferences in the Russian Federation”.

He emphasized that state support of particular enterprises, industries and regions is an integral element of state policy. “However, granting preferences to particular economic entities should not significantly affect the state of competition”, emphasized Vladimir Mishelovin.

The Head of the FAS Department for Control over the Authorities informed his European colleagues about the law that regulates granting preferences in the Russian Federation. “From 2008 to 2011 the number of considered preferences applications increased nearly threefold. In 2011, 73% applications were for granting preferences to support small and medium business. The main form of preferences is transferring state or municipal property to economic entities”, emphasized Vladimir Mishelovin.

Then the Head of the FAS Department for Control over the Authorities informed his colleagues about the main violations of the antimonopoly law related to granting preferences. “In 2011, FAS made 936 decisions on violations of the antimonopoly law in this field – it is around 10% of all violations exposed by the Antimonopoly Service”.

In conclusion, Vladimir Mishelovin, touched the issues of improving antimonopoly control granting preferences and emphasized that in the future it would be necessary to devise techniques for calculating the size of preferences, and place information about the granted preferences in publicly accessible sections on the official web-sites of government agencies.