SA to tighten competition law
Shaun Benton
15 February 2008South Africa aims to strengthen its competition legislation this year, with the intention of becoming more proactive around anti-competitive outcomes and behaviour, says Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa.
Briefing the media in Cape Town on Tuesday, Mpahlwa said changes to the country's competition law would allow the state to deal with anti-competitive outcomes in a more "vigorous and proactive" manner.
Mpahlwa added that his department would be taking draft legislation, which intends to strengthen competition authorities such as the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal, to Cabinet shortly before introducing it in Parliament.
The amended legislation would create areas for the competition authorities to get more involved in investigations and enable greater intervention where necessary, he said.
Mpahlwa said the government intended to be more firm on issues of competition, adding that there had been enough evidence of anti-competitive behaviour in the South African market recently.
Business regulation
In addition, he said the government would be broadening a process that began last year to review and benchmark existing regulatory requirements for doing business, while initiating a process to ensure that regulation in the economy is sufficient but not onerous.
A national assessment of the performance of economic regulators in the South African economy is to be completed in April, and this study will inform the framework for regulators going forward.
As such, the government would strive not to over-regulate the market, by ensuring a greater interaction between the government and the players concerned, be they consuming industries or the producers themselves, Mpahlwa said.
Import parity pricing
Import parity pricing - where local producers of commodities maintain prices at international, or import,
levels - is also seen as a target for the new legislation.
Import parity pricing has been blamed on distorting or stunting the development of downstream industries dependent on materials such as steel, which many market observers argue is over-priced.
In terms of the ability to promote downstream manufacturing, import parity pricing had become of sufficient concern to warrant greater regulation and interaction, and the government would continue to seek a solution on the issue, Mpahlwa said.
At the same time, the government was looking at reducing the costs of production for many industries by removing unnecessary tariffs, with areas targeted for possible tariff removal or reduction including steel and chemicals, he said
Tshediso Matona, director-general in the Deparment of Trade and Industry, added that food pricing would receive greater attention from the competition authorities and other government departments such as the Department of Agriculture and the National Treasury, who would together consider what course of action to take on the matter.
Source: BuaNews
