On February 4–5, a meeting of the BRICS Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Food Markets was held in Cairo, Egypt. The event was jointly organized by the International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre and the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA). The BRICS Working Group on Food Markets is co-chaired by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia and the Competition Commission of South Africa. The meeting focused on the theme “Leveling the Playing Field in the Global Grain Trade.”
The meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Competition in Food Markets focused on exploring practical cooperation avenues among the BRICS competition authorities in relation to developments in global grain value chains, including issues related to market structure and concentration.
This meeting marked a transition from researching the state of competition in the global grain trade towards discussions on possible areas of action among BRICS competition authorities. The meeting agenda focused on the scope, objectives, and potential modalities of a joint sector inquiry that BRICS competition authorities may wish to examine, with the aim of supporting transparency, resilience, and competitive conditions in global food supply chains.
The second stream of the agenda addressed the role of competition authorities in relation to discussions related to grain trading platforms within the BRICS countries, as reaffirmed by BRICS leaders in the Rio de Janeiro Declaration of 2025. Sessions on the second day of the meeting brought together representatives of the BRICS competition authorities and commodity exchange experts to discuss key elements of the institutional, technological and legal framework relevant to such platforms. The agenda also included discussions on potential areas of inter-BRICS cooperation related to industrial data exchange and data marketplaces, including their possible contribution to data governance objectives in the Global South.
Among speakers were:
- Mahmoud Momtaz, Chairman, Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA)
- Alexey Ivanov, Director, BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre
- Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia
- Gustavo Augusto Freitas de Lima, President, Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE)
- Fanshurullah Asa, Chairman, Indonesia Competition Commission
- Igor Artemiev, President, Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX)
- Maksim Yermalovich, Minister in charge of Competition and Antitrust Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission
- Chen Qianting, Deputy Director, Abuse of Dominance Enforcement Division II, Antimonopoly Enforcement Department I, State Administration for Market Regulation of China
- Kagiso Zwane, Senior Economist, Competition Commission of South Africa
- Mohammed Sultan Janahi, Director of Competition, UAE Ministry of Economy (online)
- Anastasia Nesvetailova, Director, Macroeconomic and Development Policies Branch, GDS, UNCTAD (online)
- Thembinkosi Bonakele, Ex-Commissioner, Competition Commission of South Africa
and others.