Virtual launch of assessment of Competition Law of Belarus
14 December 2020
Your Excellency, Mr. Vladimir Koltovich, Minister of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade of the Republic of Belarus,
I am pleased joining you to launch this legal assessment of Belarus' competition law. This formal assessment was completed in close collaboration with MART (the Ministry) and provides a provision-by-provision comments on the recent Belarus competition law adopted in 2013. The assessment is intended to contribute to Belarus’s review of its competition law and policy with an eye to supporting effective competition law enforcement. It provides what we hope are useful recommendations going forward towards more flexible development of the competition regime in the short, medium and long term, by developing guidance through the adoption of regulations.
It is our hope that the UNCTAD Model Law on Competition has been useful in this exercise and we thank Belarus for its interest and trust in UNCTAD’s expertise on competition law and policy. We believe that our exchanges on Belarus competition law enforcement will help feed the ongoing dialogue at UNCTAD around international best practices on competition law and policy with jurisdictions from around the world.
It’s important to note that when this legal assessment was presented at the UNCTAD IGE on Competition law and policy meeting of July 2019, it was a new type of exercise. It is one of the first such assessments conducted within the framework of a regional economic organization, as Belarus is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. In this way, the Belarus assessment has been a trailblazer on a topic of growing interest among the UNCTAD membership, considering the growing importance of regional trade and economic cooperation globally. A number of UNCTAD Member States belong to regional economic organizations that are moving forward with adopting regional competition rules, and this has raised the need for increased interaction among national competition rules.
I would like to therefore thank Belarus for its active contribution to UNCTAD’s latest developments in this field for also facilitating international cooperation in competition law enforcement. Belarus took an active role in the discussions leading to the recent recommendation on Guiding Policies and Procedures under the UN Set on Competition, approved at the recent 8th UN Review Conference in October 2020. We encourage MART to continue its active engagement with UNCTAD and welcome your support and interest in participating in the new UNCTAD working group on cross-border cartels proposed by the Russian Federation.
I am also pleased in these difficult days, as we face a global pandemic, this assessment has also shown how the United Nations works better as one to serve our membership, as this assessment was conducted within the wider context of the existing UNDAF – UN Development Assistance Framework.
With the assessment completed, now is the time for implementation. As agreed and discussed, we hope this can take the form of technical cooperation and capacity building activities in collaboration with MART and other Government bodies’ officials and relevant stakeholders, such as the judiciary. It is also my hope that the launch of this assessment can help us move ahead securing the planned funding support by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group, which I understand has confirmed its willingness to contribute to this important area of collaboration between UNCTAD and Belarus.
