On October 23, at the XVI BRICS summit in Kazan, all participants adopted a final declaration, which, among other things, noted the importance of the BRICS Competition Centre in promoting competition.
The BRICS Kazan Declaration entitled “Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security” reaffirms the commitment of the BRICS member countries to further enhance and promote cooperation on competition law and policy issues among the BRICS countries “in order to promote sustainable market development, effectively counter cross-border anticompetitive practices and create favorable market conditions.”
“We note the role of the International BRICSC Competition Law and Policy Centre in knowledge creation and knowledge sharing among BRICS competition authorities, as well as the importance of ensuring the most favorable environment for the development of competition law in BRICS countries and working to remove monopoly barriers in socially important markets. We welcome the holding of the IX International Competition Conference under the BRICS auspices in South Africa in 2025,”
the document reads.
During the session dedicated to the issues of deepening integration of the BRICS member states, the President of the Russian Federation also positively assessed the Centre's work.
“The International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre has proven itself well. We believe it is necessary to further develop this area, including the launch of an interstate platform for fair competition,”
Putin emphasized.
In 2019, the Russian Government supported the work of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre at the Higher School of Economics and plans for its activities. Previously, The BRICS Competition Centre functioned as part of the HSE – Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, a Moscow-based international think tank. The initiative to transform the Centre into an independent unit was put forward by the FAS of Russia, it was supported by other BRICS antitrust agencies.
It is assumed that in the future the Centre will be transformed into an international organization, close in functionality to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Competition Committee.
Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Centre, has previously stated the need to institutionalize the BRICS antimonopoly sphere. In his opinion, this topic will become increasingly relevant as the number of BRICS members grows. It is necessary to bring antitrust cooperation in the BRICS format to a new qualitative level.
“The need for this is realized both by the expert community of our countries and antitrust regulators, as shown by the results of an in-depth survey conducted by the International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre this year,”
Ivanov said in an interview with TASS.
According to him, the creation of a full-fledged institution for the protection of competition in the global markets in the expanded BRICS format is a serious opportunity to revise the principles of regulation of the global economy in the interests of the BRICS countries and the developing world as a whole.
“This will be an important factor in making the association more attractive to the countries of the Global South, which often only watch powerlessly the growing injustice and inequality in the global economy. This, in turn, may prompt further expansion of the association at a new qualitative level - on the basis of mutually beneficial principles and mechanisms to protect healthy competition in the key socially important markets of the world economy”,
Alexey Ivanov believes.
The BRICS summit is taking place in Kazan on October 22-24. Thirty-six foreign leaders have been invited to the event. UN Secretary General António Guterres arrived at the BRICS summit, among others.