November 18-19, 2013, New Delhi
Background
Competition is central to the operation of markets, and fosters innovation, productivity, growth and good governance, all of which creates wealth and reduces poverty. However, markets do not always function properly, and uncompetitive markets are often those that matter most for the poor. Many developing countries have now prioritised growth in their national poverty reduction strategies. Given that effective competition is a driver of productivity, sound adoption of sound competition reforms should be an essential component of any pro-poor growth strategy.
Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) have considerable rich experience spanning over two decade in nearly 30 developing and least developing countries of Asia and Africa in advocating competition reforms. CUTS strongly believe that competition reforms should be pursued to level the playing field and prevent interest groups and individuals from controlling the market.
Against this background, one of the key initiatives that CUTS and CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition (CIRC) have taken in last few years is to provide a platform to deliberate and discuss key economic and governance challenges to competition and economic regulation at an international level and had organized two previous conferences in New Delhi, India.
The idea for this biennial series was conceived in the backdrop of developing countries concerns of frequent regulatory failures that undermine the capacity to achieve policies important to citizens and consumers. Such failures are due to persistent and common patterns of over-regulation, under-regulation, poorly designed regulation and implementation, and weak institutional capacities.
The proposed sessions would include:
- Should competition policy and law be blind to equity – The Debate
- Competition policy in developing countries- What makes it different from developed world?
- How Independent and accountable are competition agencies?
- How to deal with overlaps and conflicts between competition authorities and sector regulators?
- Multi-lateral disciplines on trade and competition: Overview of the Debate
- Strengthening transparency and accountability in public procurement – Competition is a Key
- Global landscape of competition scenario in 60 minutes
This would be another attempt to forge convergence on the mentioned issues by putting on display different approaches for rationalizing, formulating and evaluating economic regulation as well as defining stakeholder participation in such regulation
The conference will feature national and international experts from polity, business, academia, media and others on key economic, governance and public policy issues facing developing countries in a globalising world.