II E II MEETING OF THE WORKING GROUP ON TRADE AND COMPETITION (Lima, 18-19 June 2012)

The The objective of the meeting is to continue and reinforce the activities of the Working Group on Trade and Competition, and to plan strategies for future work among all members. The purpose is to deal with issues related to trade and competition of common interest for all Member States, so as to identify regional best practices in both areas and promote their dissemination, get a better understanding and promote synergies among trade and competition policies and institutions in the region.

SESSIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF PARTICIPANTS

In addition, to the opening and closing sessions, there will be other four types of sessions:

-          A High-Level Segment, in which ministers and high-level officials from Trade and Competition Authorities will reflect on how competition clauses of regional trade integration agreements contribute to reinforce the effectiveness of national competition authorities.

-          The sessions that will serve to submit the reports on the work carried out during the period 2011-2012 by Working Sub-Group 2 (legal instruments related with competition and bilateral, regional and multilateral trade, under the coordination of Chile) and Sub-Group 4 (research and sectoral studies, coordinated by Panama).

-          The sessions to deal with major issues:

o        Public procurement, competition and trade

o        Cross-border anti-competitive practices: Challenges for emerging and developing economies

-          Finally, one section will focus on the Needs for technical assistance and bilateral, subregional and multilateral cooperation among trade and competition institutions in the region.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE COMPAL PROGRAMME (Lima, 20 to 22 June 2012)

 Also in Lima, in the days following the meeting of the WGTD, the COMPAL II Programme will hold its III Annual Conference. COMPAL is a technical assistance programme of UNCTAD, financed by the Swiss government, for reinforcing technical and institutional capacities of the authorities responsible for the areas of competition and consumer protection from the countries of Latin America.

The first phase of the programme (COMPAL I) was developed between 2005 and 2008; the second phase (COMPAL II) is underway since 2009 and will last until 2013. COMPAL started with five countries and at present it has 12 members. The programme’s approach was enriched during its second phase as it included, in addition to the national components, a regional component whose objective is to take advantage of possible synergies among activities in different countries, extend the benefits of COMPAL to the whole region, and strengthen coherence among competition, consumer protection and trade policies, as well as regional cooperation among institutions and countries.

At the Annual Conferences, the member countries of COMPAL – particularly their authorities in charge of competition and consumer protection – evaluate the activities and projects carried out during the previous period (in this case, from July 2011 to July 2012) and plan new strategies and activities for the next period (2012-2013, which is the last period for COMPAL II), on the basis of the experiences gained with COMPAL I and COMPAL II thus far.

Participants at the GTCC meeting are cordially invited to stay a little longer in Lima in order to attend the III Annual Conference of COMPAL.