October 19, 2018
Japan Fair Trade Commission
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter, “JFTC”) and the ASEAN Expert Group on Competition (hereinafter, “AEGC”) start the technical assistance project (Phase2), of which proponent is the Indonesian competition authority (Kosimi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha (KPPU)), under Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF*) for ASEAN Competition Authorities to strengthen competition law enforcement (Period: January 2019 – December 2020). The outline of this project is given in 1. & 2. below.
In addition, this project will be carried out in cooperation with international experts on competition policy and law such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (hereinafter, “UNCTAD”), as the JFTC has dispatched a staff to the Competition and Consumer Policies Branch, Division on International Trade in Goods and Services, and Commodities of UNCTAD since July, 2016.
*JAIF: The fund, based on donation from Japanese government, established in ASEAN Secretariat for supporting ASEAN in 2006.
Please refer to the JAIF website for the details; https://jaif.asean.org/
1. Background
The JFTC and AEGC started the technical assistance project under JAIF for ASEAN Competition Authorities in September 2016. In the phase1 of this project (Period; September 2016 – August 2018), holding workshops or training courses in Japan or ASEAN member states (hereinafter, “AMS”), and staff exchanging amongst AMS competition authorities were implemented.
As almost all AMS have legislated the competition law and AMS’ needs to technical assistance are diversified and sophisticated, the JFTC is now more expected to share its expertise knowledge and experience with AMS to provide technical assistance activities regarding competition advocacy in order to enhance public awareness and compliance for competition policy and law, in addition to strengthening the capacity of their competition authorities and their enforcement of the competition laws.
Under such circumstance, in the phase2 of this project, the JFTC and the AEGC plan to implement activities on enhancing the competition advocacy in addition to the activities in phase1 of this project.
These activities are in line with the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025* to achieve “Effective Competition Policy”.
*The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025: The ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN Political-Security Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community establish their goals, objectives and strategic action plan as the Blueprint 2025.
2. Expected activities
In addition to holding workshops or training courses in Japan or AMS, staff exchanging amongst AMS competition authorities, the JFTC and the AEGC plan to implement following activities;
- The development of peer review guidance for AMS’s competition law,
- The study on recommended procedures for joint investigations and decisions on cross-border cases, and
- The development of survey methods and tools and the national surveys for the ASEAN Competition Business Perception Index.
And as the theme of workshop in Japan, “Strategic planning and management for competition authorities” is considered in line with AMS’s needs.
*Every announcement is tentative translation. Please refer to the original text written in Japanese.
