HSE University International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre and the Competition Policy and Assessment Centre founded by the State Administration for Market Regulation of China signed a cooperation agreement. The parties agreed to come up with proposals for the development of exchange trade in goods and raw materials between Russia, China, and the BRICS countries.
"This is the first such agreement between research institutes in Russia and China, aimed at developing competition and deepening collaboration on antimonopoly issues among the academic communities in our countries,"
says Alexey Ivanov, Director of the International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre.
Alexey Ivanov recalled that in 2022, in a series of documents adopted during the visit of President Vladimir Putin to China, the governments of the two countries signed a cooperation agreement in the field of antimonopoly law and competition policy. ‘It is symbolic that two years later, during Russia’s BRICS chairship, we concluded a memorandum of expert cooperation on competition protection with China's leading antimonopoly centre,’ notes Ivanov.
Experts from the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which signed a cooperation agreement with HSE University in August 2024, will also join the development of the BRICS exchange trading concept. In Russia, the BRICS Centre has already started working on this concept together with the Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange.
© HSE University
The agreement with Chinese partners calls for implementing joint scientific and practical programmes and conducting joint research on competition regulation in socially important markets such as the digital economy, the pharmaceutical industry, the automotive sector, and the global food market. It also involves the consideration and regulation of economic concentration transactions.
Alexey Ivanov highlights the great potential in developing Russian-Chinese exchange trade in goods and raw materials.
"Trade in essential goods between Russia and China has been of crucial importance for centuries. In the 19th century, Russian tea was transported from China overland through Central China and the north-eastern part of Russia. Modern Chinese Wuhan was the starting point of the Great Tea Road. Thanks to the Treaty of Kyakhta, which led to the establishment of mutually beneficial relations, Russian tea factories were built in central China and Russian settlements emerged," Ivanov says. "This historical cooperation can be revived and strengthened by Russian and Chinese entrepreneurs working directly through modern exchange mechanisms. This will not only establish direct long-term relationships, but also reduce the prices of goods for end consumers by eliminating intermediary schemes. We need to develop a system of organisational, legal, and economic measures, as well as analyse the necessary conditions in order to create exchange platforms and promote exchange trading, inclusively within the BRICS framework."
As part of the China International Forum on Fair Competition Policy, the BRICS Centre organised the BRICS Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Pharmaceutical Markets in Wuhan. The group’s meeting was held with the participation of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service, which co-chairs the Working Group along with the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People's Republic of China (SAMR). It marked the next stage in the Centre’s international research project on a comparative analysis of regulations for introducing biotechnological products into the BRICS market, which was launched last year. The event was attended by representatives of the antimonopoly authorities of the BRICS countries, leaders of pharmaceutical companies in China and Russia, and experts from top BRICS universities.
In addition, employees of the BRICS Centre participated in an official bilateral meeting with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and SAMR. Meng Yang, Deputy Minister of the State Administration for Market Regulation of China, expressed the willingness of the Chinese antimonopoly regulator to strengthen cooperation in the BRICS format. At the end of the visit in China, a joint seminar on artificial intelligence regulation was held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as part of the BRICS programme.
Source: HSE News
