BRICS Competition Authority Heads Back Institute Project

On the second day of Competition Week, September 22, at a meeting of the heads of the antitrust authorities of BRICS countries, Alexey Ivanov and Ioannis Lianos spoke about the recent experience in running a pilot project to optimise the operation and regulation of the food industry in BRICS countries.

The food industry today is aligned with the circuitry of the new economy; the knowledge economy, networks, platforms, and the role of technology in agriculture today are immense. This situation leads to the fact that the food industry is in a state of high monopoly. For example, almost 90% of the market for the production of biotech seeds in the modern world is in the hands of seven leading players, and companies from BRICS countries are not among them. Therefore, from an international scope, this situation is a threat to food security in emerging markets.
Alexey and Ioannis described a pilot project on the global structure of food chains. One specific recommendation from the Institute staff was the proposal to optimise the functioning and regulation of the food industry via the creation of a platform for the cooperation of competition authorities and independent experts and to develop unified approaches to the antitrust regulation of the intersection of the innovation sphere and socially-significant markets such as food and pharma.
According to the Federal Antimonopoly Service, "the leaders of the competition authorities of the BRICS countries support the draft submitted by Skolkovo, with special note to the importance of involving outside experts. It was decided to continue work in this direction, in particular to include the Skolkovo report in the agenda of the IV International Conference on Competition".