Georgia: Irakli Lekvinadze, Chairman of the Georgian Competition and Consumer Protection Agency (GCCA), spoke about GCCA’s achievements at Switzerland’s UNCTAD competition law session.
In Geneva, on July 3, at the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) invitation, the 22nd opening session of intergovernmental experts on competition law and policy.
During his speech, Irakli Lekvinadze talked about reforms and achievements implemented to strengthen competition politics in Georgia and focused attention on works completed in the past years.
“GCCA is ten years old, and in this period, it has passed several stages of reforms. Specifically, in 2020, significant changes were implemented in competition legislation, which is the best example of harmonizing Georgian legislation with European legislation. In 2021-2022, we have begun implementing anti-dumping and consumer rights protection laws.
The evaluation of compliance with EU legislation is ongoing and permanent. Today, according to EU experts, competition legislation is more than 75% compliant with European legislation, up from 60% in 2022. At this point, the recommendations have been made, and we are planning the next steps to be in full compliance with European legislation.
In 2020-2024, to improve market competition, GCCA made important decisions. Twenty surveys were completed. Among them, the agreed actions were approved: on pharmacy, fuel market, and online sales of cinemas,” Irakli Lekvinadze said during his speech.
According to the same explanation, in 2020-2024, GCCA completed monitoring of 11 markets, including pharmaceutical, fuel, banking, insurance, etc. The government implements most of the 13 recommendations given on the pharmaceutical market.
Also speaking at the opening session was the president of the Federal Republic of Germany competition body, Andreas Mundt; chairman of the OECD competition committee, Frederik Jen; professor of George Washington University, William Kovacic; and others. Participating in the event: Relevant authorities of UNCTAD member states and heads of non-governmental organizations.
Sergo Sanikidze, head of GCCA Consumer Rights Protection Department, is on a working visit to Geneva and is participating in the meetings.
