ISLAMABAD: The participants of the 21st meeting of Competition Consultative Group (CCG) held Thursday at the CCP head office, were briefed on the CCP’s performance and were informed that a number of enforcement initiatives have been taken to address competition concerns in various important sectors of the economy.
Ever since the process of appointment of Members was completed and full time Chairperson was appointed in December 2014, CCP has significantly speeded up its enforcement activities. CCP has passed 7 orders, initiated 15 inquiries with 10 pertaining to cartels and trade abuses and 5 related to deceptive marketing practices, issued 24 exemptions to agreements that affect hearings public including a hearings 14 held and competition, January and March 2015.
The inquiries include: looking into the reasons for the unreasonable price hike of essential commodities; why the global decrease in petroleum prices have not reflected in the price of transportation of people and goods; the possible cartelisation in the LPG, cement, and poultry feed sectors.
Under its mandate to review mergers and acquisitions that substantially lessen competition, CCP cleared 16 pre-merger applications in the quarter. Out of these, two pertaining to GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis were taken to a second phase review to analyse competition concerns before being cleared with certain structural remedies.
The participants were given presentation on the GSK-Novartis vaccine merger.
Mr. Moazzam Ali, Transaction Manager, Privatization Commission of Pakistan gave a presentation on the privatisation programme, an important topic of discussion in the current economic scenario of Pakistan.