Serves to promote competition and protect consumer rights

 Large-scale work is underway in our country aimed at creating a compact and professional public administration system. In this process, special attention is paid to ensuring timely and effective implementation of Administrative Reforms, organizing the activities of the executive authorities of the Republic on the basis of updated requirements and principles.
The decree of the head of our state "on measures to implement the Administrative Reforms of new Uzbekistan"of December 21, 2022 became a logical continuation of the work on this subject. In accordance with the decree, within the framework of the first stage of reforms, a proposal to form a holistic system of executive bodies of the Republic was adopted from January 1, 2023. 
According to the established principle, state bodies in the form of a committee were divided into two categories, namely the executive bodies of the Republic, which coordinate and regulate the activities of the network within the relevant sphere and organize the managerial work in the system on a collegial basis, as well as operate under the organizational subordination of the ministry and, in accordance
Executive bodies, including personnel in executive positions, are being made acceptable up to 30 percent. The functions of the executive bodies of the Republic are also regulated and reduced by at least 10 percent. The activities of the leaders are being adjusted on the basis of proposals from citizens, their public awareness is being strengthened and other innovations are being introduced.
According to this decree, on the basis of the Antitrust Committee, a committee for the development of competition and protection of consumer rights was established, and the functions of the Consumer Protection Agency under the antitrust committee were also assigned to it.
Looking at the activities of our committee in 2022, 19 draft normative legal acts were developed. Of this, 3 Laws, 4 decisions of the President, 9 decisions of the Cabinet of Ministers and 3 departmental documents of the committee were prepared. 
In particular, the new competition bill, prepared by the committee with the support of international experts, was approved today by the Legislative Chamber of the Supreme Assembly.
In order to assess the impact of legislative bills on competition (ex-ante), 451 documents introduced by ministries and departments were examined, 49% of which identified competition-limiting norms and included conclusions on their elimination.
The current regulatory and other adopted documents (ex-post) adopted by the committee and its territorial administrations by the local state authorities and public administration bodies were subjected to a correspondence with the aim of assessing the impact on competition. In the process, 521 decisions and documents limiting competition were found to have been adopted by 76 local state authorities as well as 9 territorial units of Public Administration, and measures were taken to abolish them. 
In accordance with the current law, the actions of an economic entity or group of individuals aimed at having advantages in carrying out economic activities, contrary to legislation, work behavior habits, and which can harm or harm other economic entities (competitors), or which can damage or undermine their reputation for workmanship, are assessed as dishonest competition.
633 cases of dishonest competition were identified by the committee and its territorial bodies and instructions were issued aimed at eliminating violations of this law.
In order to maintain and strengthen its position in the market in a competitive environment, the entrepreneur is constantly forced to work on himself — to look for ways to reduce the cost of goods, to introduce innovative solutions and marketing, to advertise. Therefore, in practice, some entrepreneurs prefer to work "linguistically" among themselves rather than compete. Agreements by competitors to establish, increase and coordinate prices in agreement are known as a "cartel agreement" (language attachment). Such reciprocity allows them to move in a" khufiyona " manner in a dominant manner. At the same time, in practice, since such cartel agreements are implemented in a secret way, their identification remains as an extremely complex task.
In order to assess the competitive environment in our country in the commodity, financial and digital markets, as well as determine the level of saturation with domestic products, 262 markets of goods and services were analyzed by the committee. In this process, special attention was paid to the in-depth study of cement, mineral fertilizer, electric meters, porcelain-faience products, insurance services markets, conservation, integration of fiscal data of business entities with the tax system, services of online taxi aggregators, monopolized side markets of natural monopoly entities.
According to the results of the analysis, it was found that 15 goods and the financial market were excluded from the monopoly state due to the formation of sufficient competition, on the contrary, there were 7 enterprises with a dominant position in such a market. In total, today there are 97 enterprises and groups of individuals with a dominant position in the commodity and financial market, where competition is not sufficiently developed.  
In recent years, the number of natural monopoly entities has been reduced from 151 to 129. In 2022, monitoring was carried out over the activities of large state monopolies, 11 types of service of 134 economic entities included in the State Register of natural monopoly entities. 70% of these entities were enterprises with state participation, the rest corresponded to private sector contributions.
The tasks assigned to the committee for the development of competition and protection of consumer rights will continue to contribute to reforms aimed at creating a new Uzbekistan, ensuring economic growth, a healthy competitive environment and free access of entrepreneurs to markets, and protecting the interests of citizens and further improving the well-being of the population. In this case, the establishment of a compact and Integrated Public Administration system becomes a leading force in ensuring the effectiveness of our activities.
Farrukh Karaboev,
Promotion of competition and consumer rights
deputy chairman of the protection committee