OREANDA-NEWS. October 28, 2014. The Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP) held its 41st session in Kirgizia. ICAP made additions and approved ICAP draft Action Plan for 2015-2016.

The additions concern the areas of the Headquarters’ efforts on joint investigation of violations of the antimonopoly law by the CIS member-states.

ICAP Chairman – the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Igor Artemiev pointed out the Headquarters must use not only the methods of antimonopoly enforcement but also preventive mechanisms aimed at precompetitive changes of production relations in various industries.

In September 2014, the Headquarters already completed a broad-scale study of the state of competition on pharmaceutical markets, establishing that one of the factors affecting the state of competition in pharmaceutical markets in the CIS is high import dependency: drug prices in these countries to a considerable extent depend on the conduct of transnational pharmaceutical companies and distributors. Thus, it was decided that the Headquarters shall draft proposals to support bona fide behavior of pharmaceutical companies in view of the leading international experience and discuss them with drug producers.

The subject of the next study by the Headquarters will be the state of competition on the market of housing construction and aggregates. It is also planned to draft proposals on improving the system of subsidizing agricultural producers to support competition in granting subsidies.

ICAP members also emphasized the need to advance qualification of the officers of the antimonopoly bodies of the CIS member-states. The base organization of the CIS members-states for professional retraining and advancing qualification in antimonopoly regulation since 2013 is FAS Centre for Education and Methodics in Kazan.

Participants also emphasized positive experience of Russia on introducing the Code of Conduct of car manufacturers and active involvement of the Non-Profit Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS, which some kind of summing up the preliminary results of the work of the Non-Profit Partnership that had its first meeting also in Kyrgyzstan five years ago.

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Participants of the ICAP meeting included the heads of antimonopoly bodies of the CIS member-states, representatives of CIS Executive Committee, the Eurasian Economic Committee and the Non-Profit Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS.