The representatives of over 20 friendly countries, about 200 local and international organizations, competition agencies of various countries, the Georgian Government, Parliament, Supreme Court, academic circles and non-governmental organizations attended the first international scholarly and practical conference Competition Policy: Contemporary Trends and Challenges held at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University on November 17-18.
The conference was organized by the Competition Agency of Georgia and it was attended by the Head of the Agency, Nodar Khaduri; Rector of TSU, Giorgi Sharvashidze; Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister, Dimitri Kumsishvili; Minister of Education and Science, Mikheil Chkhenkeli; Chairperson of the Supreme Court of Georgia, Nino Gvenetadze. Moreover, Bruno Balvanera, EBRD Director for Caucasus, Moldova and Belarus, as well as Rafael Comenge, Managing Director, B&S Europe (EU-funded project Support to Georgian Competition Agency implemented by B&S Europe) participated in the conference.
In his opening remarks, Nodar Khaduri, head of the Competition Agency, proposed to create a forum Tbilisi Competition Initiative, which will be held at TSU annually. “This is the first ever conference of this scale and direction held in Georgia. We tried to exchange with each other Georgian theoretical experience, as well as European and global theoretical and practical experience, which our friends and we have accumulated so far in order to receive practical results of how the competition promotion policy should look like in the countries like ours,” Khaduri said.
“A lot of painful issues for both Georgia and the region are being discussed at the conference. It is very good that Georgia has become a model for many nations. The format is very interesting for us, because it enables to merge the deeds, which are practically done in economic sphere, with the knowledge of scientists. It is a dialogue between science and practice and it is important that TSU is hosting such a large scale assembly,” Rector Sharvashidze said.
On the sideline of the event, the Georgian Competition Agency and the respective agencies of Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Romania signed the Memorandum of Cooperation.
During the two-day conference, the participants discussed the experience of various countries in the process of ensuring fair competitive environment, the ways of improving competition, the issues of competition in state procurements, regulation of natural monopolies, as well as shortcomings in competition policies and the ways of overcoming them.
Along with the Georgian Competition Agency, the conference was organized by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IOS Partners Inc. and the Competition Institute of Georgia.
