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Stakeholders meet to validate draft competition policy |24 October 2014

 

 

 


A draft national competition policy was presented to stakeholders in a validation workshop held on Wednesday.

Organised by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC), the Seychelles Stakeholders National Competition Policy Validation workshop was held at the Seychelles Trading Company’s (STC) conference hall.
 
This was the second stakeholders’ meeting which was facilitated by the chairman of the Competition Commission from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) Alexander Kububa.

Present at the meeting were the Minister for Finance, Trade and Investment Pierre Laporte; FTC’s chief executive George Tirant, among other stakeholders.

Following the presentation of the Vountary Peer Review of the Fair Trading Commission’s laws and structure at the United Nations in Geneva last July, the Commission embarked on the creation of a national competition policy with the assistance of the Comesa Competition Commission.

The aim of the workshop on Wednesday was to iron out the draft policy so that a final document can be submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment by November.

The national competition policy aims at guiding government on applying laws, regulations, rules and policies that will allow businesses to compete fairly with each other so as to foster entrepreneurship activity and innovation.

The policy will also guide the Commission in the enforcement of the Fair Competition Act 2009 and will provide a platform upon which national policies can be harmonised with the existing competition law.

In his speech for the occasion, Minister Laporte said as with any regulatory rules that need to be enforced there generally exists the need to have a clear and well-informed policy available to guide the enforcers in the application of the law.

“The national competition policy is one that touches all sectors and is a set of measures introduced by government in stimulating competitions, protecting consumers and encouraging fair practices.

“It will allow the economy to move towards a system of policies which foster competitions with fair price and encourage innovation, efficiency and productivity,” said Minister Laporte.

He said it also ensures social gains such as poverty reduction and greater consumer welfare.
“It is indeed this wide reach that the creation of competition requires participation of regulators, agencies or organisations from all the sectors in order for the Fair Trading Commission to effectively enforce the act,” said the minister, adding that in light of the beneficial effects of this policy on the Seychelles economy, the Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment strongly supports the FTC in this extremely important venture.

As for Mr Kububa, he presented the guiding principles of the national competition policy of Seychelles which, to be effective, needs monitoring. It is also essential to  prevent anti-competitive conduct.

He said the policy’s objectives should also be in harmony with other policies; there should be strategic policy consultation; mergers and acquisitions should be done in a transparent manner; abuse of dominance in markets which can lead to cartels should be wiped out, to name some.

He also stressed on the need for independence of the competition policy and the importance of the competition authority and sector regulators to work together.

 

 

 

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