Presidential decree of Uzbekistan “On measures on further improvement of system of antimonopoly regulation and development of competition” envisages measures on further improving legal area for developing competition environment, preventing unfair competition in markets, first of all in internal consumer markets.

Effective state competition policy decreased monopoly level at goods and service markets. For last ten years, number of monopoly enterprises decreased by 75.2%. Only 2004-2009, share of monopoly products in GDP of Uzbekistan fell from 26% to 20.8%, which serves as evidence for decreasing enterprises, holding dominant position at trade markets.

Positive changes in economy of Uzbekistan and adopted new legislative acts directed at legal protection, liberalization of financial responsibility of businesses, improving controlling system require to improve antimonopoly legislation.

Acting law of Uzbekistan “On competition and limiting monopoly activity at trade markets” was adopted in 1996 and several norms are not correspond current level of economic development of the country. The law does not cover issues on controlling competition in financial services market, which does not allow to prevent anti-competitive actions in this sector.

Similar situation can be observed in regulation of tenders and exchange trades, in which antimonopoly bodies are participating without authorization of the law.

One of the directions of competition protection is to prevent interference to activities of businesses by the state bodies, especially of the state bodies in places. In particular, over 1,000 facts of interference of state bodies to activities of businesses, creation of barriers for businesses to access markets and derivation of financial resources were revealed.

The current law does not have mechanism on clear division and categorization of main definitions such as market, interchangeable goods, unfair competition, discriminative terms, etc.

The draft law determines such new terms as financial service, corresponding market, state bodies, anti-competitive actions, agreement, etc. This will allow to clarify mechanism and sphere of law enforcement and determine character of violation.

The draft law also envisages to introduce change to determine definition “dominant position” through clarification of criteria for determining dominant position in goods and service markets, as well as decreasing market share.

One of directions of anti-monopoly law is to control over deals on purchase of shares for over 35% in business entities’ charter capital to prevent monopolization of goods market. Agreement of deals with less stake is onerous and requires significant resources of business entities and antimonopoly bodies.

New law is directed at eliminating existing shortages, improving legal regulation of relations on protection of competition, clarifying state policy in this area, updating tools on preventing monopoly activities in goods markets.

The law also introduces antimonopoly regulation to financial market. The law also says that prices set at exchange markets are not monopoly price. The document includes separate chapter on regulation of tenders and exchange trades.

The draft law introduces new chapter, regulating merges, acquisitions, purchase of shares, property rights and other deals, which leads to strengthening predominance of persons or group of persons.

Currently, the law introduces corresponding changes to authorities of antimonopoly bodies, the committee said.

The committee said that adoption of the law will consolidate norms, regulating competition, current state of many separate by-laws, eliminate legislation gaps and shortages, create equal conditions for businesses, free movement of goods, etc.