OREANDA-NEWS. May 29, 2014. Small and medium business: the growth prospects within the Common Economic Space. The Conference with such title was organized in Moscow by the “Vedomosti” newspaper.

Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Andrey Tsyganov, was one of the speakers at the Round Table on “Improving the Law of the Common Economic Space to Eliminate Barriers in Cooperation with Small and Medium Business”.

“Developing the situation on the Common Economic Space opens the markets. May be slowly and inconsistently but markets are opening”, said Andrey Tsyganov. “In turn, opening the markets gradually intensifies competition, which means that soon business will apply to the State for protection from unlawful actions of their competitors”.

In spite of expanding geographic boundaries for doing business, not all entrepreneurs are prepared to develop business outside their province, let alone other countries. Therefore, as mentioned by Andrey Tsyganov, apart from administrative barriers that businessmen can face entering a market in another country, there are also mental barriers:

“A significant part of time shall be required to resolve precisely the “friend-or-foe” problem; that is - to overcome regional and national separatism”.

Some time, according to Andrey Tsyganov, will be needed to adjust a system for allowing companies from neighboring countries to public procurement.

Another barrier for entrepreneurial activity can be a tendency towards expanding a list of the commodity groups with price regulation.

“As for antimonopoly enforcement, competition protection bodies in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will continue their efforts but particular functions shall be transferred to a supra-national body – the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). Primarily – investigating cross-border cases.

The issue of confidential information protection in EEC control over compliance with the unified competition rules remains unresolved. At the moment, however, FAS is involved in drafting an agreement on the procedures for protecting confidential information, so in the near future the issue will be resolved legislatively.