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“This was probably the first time we saw a President of a host country (Poland) inaugurating the Annual ICN Conference that itself reflects the significance of Competition/Antitrust in the modern regulatory architecture necessary for economic growth. UoKIK (Polish Competition Authority) hosted the conference to discuss the greatest challenges of antimonopoly law over three days of deliberations

As has been customary the Pre-ICN meetings informally start a day before the main ICN and this time the World Bank decided to do it.  Earlier, the IDRC had been doing it. In the pre-ICN World Bank event the day was spent on discussions about how we can make market work better for development and accelerate the competition reform process. The discussions mostly hovered around private sector development and how competition policy could facilitate reforms to foster more open, productive and competitive markets. There were interesting panel discussions on minimising distortive state aid and the role of EU competition policy framework. Though the highlight of the day was the session on agribusiness and air transport, where enlightening presentations on Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa in agribusiness value chains. On air transport, Morocco, Mexico and Pakistan shared their experiences

“…Competition is to serve consumers. Well-informed consumers are engine of economic changes, because their choices stimulate the economic growth and increase the innovation” ––said the Polish President, Bronis³aw Komorowski in his opening speech. Albeit, the issues and discussions at this antitrust hub do not per se focus on common consumer related competition concerns in developing countries but more on legal aspects and other provisions of competition enforcement among a galaxy of heads and experts from antimonopoly authorities

The main conference as usual covered all the subjects of the working groups from enforcing and promoting competition policy, cartels, merger control and the abuse of a dominant position. About 10 plenaries and more than 20 meetings of various working groups were held within three days. However, from a newcomer’s perspective it is a very unusual design of the conference where no interventions were allowed (by default) in the main plenary sessions and one could only listen to some of the best brains in the field. Nevertheless, one could speak and debate in the breakout sessions of various working groups. The other major activities on the sidelines at such conferences is networking in the lobbies and other smaller structured or unstructured side meetings, which are hugely valuable

Competition advocacy functions of agencies have always been debated in various international fora as complementary to effective enforcement, and being critical for achieving objectives of a competition law. CUTS always believe and practice through its various intervention projects that such advocacy efforts should include undertaking competition impact assessment of relevant policies and critical sectors; and building alliances with and raising awareness of a broad range of stakeholders, providing independent advices to policymakers (through formal and informal channels); so that merits of competitive markets in bringing about choice, quality, innovation and affordability are brought to the fore.

The final day was devoted to effective detection and elimination of cartels. A lot of attention was drawn to the international cooperation in this area. Here we would like to bring to the attention of the participants of the E-forum that CUTS has been running an International Campaign since 2009 for the adoption of World Competition Day on 5th December on theme of `Cartels and their harmful effects on the Poor’ and have been successful so far in obtaining support of competition agencies of many countries. In fact, we are happy to note that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has dedicated a specific session on this particular theme in the upcoming Intergovernmental Group of Experts (IGE) to be held in Geneva in the July, 2013.”

Vikash Batham, CUTS International

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