Luanda - The Competition Regulatory Authority (ARC) Chairwoman, Eugenia Pereira, said on Thursday in Luanda, that has sanctioned prevaricating companies in more than $15 million US dollars, from 2018 to 2023.
Speaking to the press on the sidelines of the opening of the IV Conference on Competition and Economic Regulation, she stressed that the most sanctioned sectors were oil, gas, industry, food distribution and beverages.
Eugénia Pereira explains that, during the period, the ARC recorded about 33 cases on average, within the scope of investigation of conduct cases.
The official stressed that the effective application of competition policy plays a decisive role in boosting the recovery of economic activity, ensuring growth and the sustainable development of the national economy.
In her opinion, there is an improvement in policies and strategies aimed at making the Angolan economy more competitive and attractive to private investment and for the benefit of consumers.
Eugénia Pereira says that, through economic regulation, the State has sought to ensure the regular functioning of the market, mitigating any failures that may exist and may affect its efficiency.
In this way, she continued, the State understands the particular relevance of competition and economic regulation for the promotion of economic growth and development, having carried out important reforms in these two areas.
According to Eugénia Pereira, the organic and functional resizing of the institutions responsible for its implementation and normative densification of special legal regimes allows regulatory entities to develop their attributions more effectively.
According to the chairperson, the competition policy currently has multiple challenges, related to a constantly changing society, also influenced by the context of retraction of economic activity worldwide, resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the conflicts in Ukraine and, more recently, between Israel and Palestine.
She stressed that the advent of new technologies has transformed the interaction between providers of goods and services and consumers, particularly with regard to the introduction of new forms of production and provision of services, factors that constitute real challenges for economic regulation.
As an example, she reinforced, the emergence and development of FinTech’s stands out, which have revolutionized the way financial transactions are carried out, challenging the traditional models of banks and other financial institutions, as they offer the market more efficient and accessible solutions.
In her view, the disruption resulting from the progress in the market, in its most varied segments of activity, requires the economic sectoral regulatory bodies and the Competition Regulatory Authority to make important advances, in terms of adaptability for the exercise of their duties.
“Challenging them to create forms of intervention in the market that are capable of mitigating behaviors that affect healthy competition between different operators,” she said.
For this reason, she continued, it is essential to ensure that the CRA and the sectoral regulatory authorities have all the necessary conditions so that they can monitor the evolution of economic activity and, in this way, ensure the optimal allocation of resources and the full functioning of the market.
Eugénia Pereira points out that the CRA prioritizes the control of mergers and the promotion of the culture of competition and the defense of competition in the context of regional integration (AfCFTA), promotion of the culture of competition, investigation of restrictive practices of competition, cooperation at national and international level. HEM/AC/TED/DOJ
