On September 10, a delegation of the BRICS Competition Centre participated in a bilateral meeting with the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS of Russia) and the State Administration for Market Regulation of China (SAMR). The meeting was held on the sidelines of the China International Forum on Fair Competition Policy in Wuhan.
During the meeting, Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the FAS of Russia, and Meng Yang, Vice Minister of SAMR, discussed issues related to bilateral cooperation between the antimonopoly authorities of Russia and China, as well as coordination of initiatives on international platforms. Both parties highly appreciated the existing cooperation in the bilateral format and within the SCO, the UN, and especially within the BRICS.
In the photo: Andrey Tsyganov
Meng Yang expressed the Chinese market regulator's willingness to strengthen cooperation in the BRICS format in three main areas. Firstly, China intends to intensify SAMR's participation in the BRICS Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Pharmaceutical Markets as its co-chair together with Russia. Meng Yang noted that for China, with its large population, the issue of providing the country with affordable medicines, including innovative biologics and biosimilars, is extremely acute. In this process, it is important to pay attention not only to regulating the prices of necessary drugs, but also to bringing small and medium-sized innovative companies to the market, Meng Yang emphasized.
Andrey Tsyganov agreed that the purpose of the group's work is not only to control the quality and effectiveness of medicinal products, but also to remove administrative barriers to bringing innovative medicines to the markets.
The SAMR Vice Minister also noted the need to strengthen cooperation between Russia and China in the fight against cross-border cartels. Finally, he pointed out the need for close cooperation between the two countries when considering global economic concentration deals.
In all these areas of cooperation, the parties highly appreciated the potential of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, which provides the agencies with great expert support and a platform for discussions. Alexey Ivanov, Director of the Centre, who spoke at the meeting, noted that by the end of 2024 the BRICS Centre plans to prepare a report on the access of biosimilars to the pharmaceutical market. In March 2025, the next meeting of the Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Pharmaceutical Markets will be held, during which it is planned to propose to the competition authorities of the BRICS countries to launch a full-fledged sectoral study of these markets.
One of the most important results of the meeting was the readiness of the Chinese regulator to take a joint initiative to establish a BRICS international Working Group on control over global economic concentration transactions, the need for which has been repeatedly emphasized by the Centre's experts. In particular, during the Second BRICS+ Digital Competition Forum in Brazil, held in November 2023, experts at the Centre's initiative discussed the launch of the so-called “merger radar”, which allows agencies to monitor economic concentration transactions outside domestic jurisdictions, as well as the conclusion of a multilateral agreement on coordination in reviewing global mergers.
On the Chinese side, Zhou Zhigao, Deputy Director General, Department of Competition Policy Coordination, SAMR; Yu Lu, Deputy Director General of Department I of Anti-monopoly Enforcement, SAMR; Xie Fang, Deputy Director of SAMR's Department II, and Chen Jiachang, Deputy Director-General of SAMR’s Department of International Cooperation, also attended the meeting.
