JAKARTA, 11 September 2014 – The ASEAN Experts Group on Competition (AEGC) gathered at the ASEAN Secretariat from 9-10 September to deliberate a post-2015 vision, with new targets and a regional plan of action on competition for the period 2016-2025. The envisaged establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of 2015 will mark an important milestone on ASEAN’s way towards deeper regional economic integration and community-building. The Brainstorming Meeting was convened in compliance with the directives of the ASEAN High-Level Task Force on Economic Integration (HLTF-EI) to develop a strategic framework towards 2025.
The AEC Blueprint 2009-2015 foresees the introduction of competition policy in all Member States by 2015. By end of 2015, it is expected that a comprehensive competition law will be in place in least 7 Member States.
Building upon its work and moving forward, the AEGC reaffirmed its commitment to continue fostering a competition-aware region, strengthening the legal frameworks as well as core competencies in the areas of institution-building and enforcement. This would have to take into account the existing competition regimes and differing levels of competition policy and law (CPL) development in ASEAN. In the long term, it would also be necessary to devise a workable regional mechanism to handle cross-border competition cases.
The draft post-2015 Competition Action Plan is set to be finalized during the 14th AEGC Meeting in November 2014. The discussion was facilitated by Ms. Alice Pham from Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) Hanoi and Mr. Michael Albers, a former Hearing Officer of the European Competition, who provided their expertise and shared international experiences on regional cooperation and enforcement on CPL.
The Brainstorming Meeting was supported by the “Competition Policy and Law in ASEAN” (CPL) Project, which is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) with funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany. (Courtesy ASEAN Secretariat News)
