News From CUTS

Minister Prasad Delivers Valedictory Address to International Meeting in Goa

12^th September 2001, Goa, India

Boost Competition Policy to Crack International Cartels

10^th September, 2001 Goa, India 

Minister Prasad Delivers Valedictory Address to International Meeting in Goa

12th September 2001, Goa, India

The Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, V. Sreenivasa Prasad said that the Indian Government has accorded high priority to the programme on consumer protection and promotion of consumer welfare. Recalling that India was one of the first countries in the developing world to enact a comprehensive consumer protection legislation, namely the Consumer Protection Act of 1986, he expressed the view that in developing countries, the focus of consumer protection needs to be different from that of developed nations and the right to basic needs has to be given priority in view of the widespread poverty. He also emphasized the need for an integrated national consumer policy to guide all government departments to bring consumer perspective in their decision making process.

He was speaking on the occasion of the closing of the Regional meeting of the Asia-Pacific on New Dimensions of Consumer Protection in the Era of Globalisation held in Goa on 10^th & 11^th September. The meeting organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Consumers International (CI) and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) was attended by representatives of consumer organizations from several countries of the region including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia, Australia and Fiji.

The meeting was the third in a series of regional events, coming after similar seminars in Latin America and Africa to provide inputs to the forthcoming Expert Meeting on Consumer Interests, Competitiveness, Competition and Development, which is to be held in Geneva on October 17-19, to emphasize UNCTAD’s work in the consumer protection field.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief of the Competition and Consumer Policies branch of UNCTAD, Philippe Brusick observed that enhancing competition is not only about opening borders but primarily about increasing competitiveness by adopting appropriate competition policy and rules to ensure that competition is protected in the interest of both economic efficiency and consumer equity. To this effect, competition law enforcement should be complemented with appropriate consumer protection systems.

The Secretary General of CUTS, Pradeep S Mehta emphasized that an appropriate competition and regulatory mechanism is essential not only to protect consumer interest but also to enhance competitiveness and promote development. He also observed that a strong and vibrant consumer movement is the sine qua non to proper enforcement of the regulatory policies adopted by the Government.

The meeting agreed that properly implemented competition and consumer policies can make a key contribution to competitiveness and sustainable development. Before concluding, the meeting adopted a set of recommendations that came out as the “Goa Declaration”, pronounced by the Minister, Mr. Prasad on behalf of the participants.

 The “Goa Declaration” calls upon UNCTAD, at its forthcoming Geneva meeting on Consumer Interests, to increase the United Nations’ involvement in consumer protection, and in this respect, to extend the United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection taking into account recent developments in globalization and advances in information technology, and to strengthen UNCTAD’s work to monitor the Guidelines’ implementation and to launch further studies on the impact of recent developments on the consumers.  

For further details please contact: Mr. Nitya Nanda 

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Boost Competition Policy to Crack International Cartels

Goa, 10^th September, 2001

An international vitamin cartel operating in the world has ripped off consumers by millions of dollars in the developing world, but no competition authority is investigating the same. However competition authorities in the USA, Canada etc have already fined the carteling companies over a billion US dollars.

This fact came up at a meeting here on a project looking at the competition regimes in the developing countries held in Goa on 7-8 September.

Research partners presented the results of the first year of the 7-Up Project, a groundbreaking study comparing the competition regimes of India and six other developing countries of Asia and Africa: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa. The project is being   implemented by the Jaipur-based CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment. The project is supported by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom.

“What emerged as a very crucial recommendation, is that the consumer movements in developing countries must be strengthened if competition policy is to be implemented effectively” noted Mr Pradeep S Mehta, secretary general of CUTS. “Consumer awareness of competition issues is vital to create a vibrant national competition culture that will stimulate equitable growth”.

The Meeting launched the second phase of the project which will examine cross-border competition concerns such as international cartels and the effects of mega-mergers in developing country markets. The second phase is expected to generate valuable insight into developing country interests in relation to multilateral discussions on these issues.

International experts from various organisations such as the UNCTAD, WTO, OECD, World Bank, Consumers International, International Development Research Centre also participated as resource persons to take stock of the progress of the project and share their experiences about the subject.

“India would be the first country to support a multilateral competition arrangement that made the UNCTAD Competition Rules and Principles a binding agreement,” said Dr V S Seshadri, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce at one of the sessions on the international scenario on competition policy.

However, he rejected the EU’s thrust for multilateral competition policy at the WTO, saying it would not be in the interest of developing countries. The discussion of new issues at the WTO could only come after progress was made on implementation issues.

He said the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy was overstepping its mandate by discussing multilateral competition policy rather than establishing whether there is a concrete relationship between trade and competition policy. Before negotiating multilateral competition policy at the WTO, he said that developing countries needed to have enough experience with competition policy at the domestic level to understand its pros and cons.

Frederic Jenny, Chairman of the WTO Working Group on Trade & Competition Policy, said that the Project would facilitate much needed communication between competition authorities and trade officials on competition abuses which affect trade and vice versa. Jenny emphasised the unique role of CUTS in bridging the gap between competition officials and other stakeholders.

Emphasising the main objective of UNCTAD of a more efficient and more equitable world economy through a competition-rules-based globalisation process, Philippe Brusick, Head of Competition and Consumer Policy, UNCTAD, commended the achievements and future role of the project in strengthening the competition culture in all the project countries.

The Meeting presented the results of the first year of the Project which examined and compared the domestic competition regimes of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania. The study focused on how the differences in economic structure and policies of these countries affect their competition policy requirements.

The project revealed the importance of a vibrant consumer movement for the meaningful enforcement of competition law. However, most of the project countries lack consumer awareness of these issues.

For further details please contact Ms Anjali Bansal

Consumer Unity & Trust Society

D–217,  Bhaskar Marg,  Bani  Park, 

Jaipur  302 016,  India,

Ph: +91(0)141-228 2821-3

Fx: +91(0)141-228 2485  

Email: cutsjpr@sancharnet.in