FINAL AGENDA OF THE BEIJING WORKSHOP
19 September 2001
9:30 - 10:30
Welcome and opening remarks
- Zhenyu Sun, Vice Minister, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, China
- Sally Shelton-Colby, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD
- Margarita Trillo, Convenor of the Competition Policy and Deregulation Group, APEC and Head of International Relations and Technical Cooperation, INDECOPI (National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property), Peru. Ms. Trillo will review some of the important messages from the opening conference in Singapore in February 2001.
10:30 - 18:00
Session 1: Designing and sustaining a broad regulatory reform programme
Chair: Rolf Alter, Head of Programme on Regulatory Reform OECD.
Rapporteur: Luigi Carbone, Chair of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform, and, for the Italian government, Counsellor of State and Deputy Director of the Regulatory Simplification Unit.
Economies face basic tasks in reforming their regulatory systems: establishing capacities to promote reform, initiating change and co-ordinating cross-cutting issues; reform the processes for developing new regulations to ensure that regulation is used only when necessary and that the continuing stream of needed regulations meet high quality standards; and upgrade the quality of the enormous inventories of rules and formalities that have survived without serious examination for years or even decades. This session will be divided into three panels that will examine how economies have addressed basic tasks, including:
- Implementing good regulation principles to speed up results. A well-organised and monitored reform process, driven by "engines of reform" with accountability for results, is important for the success of the regulatory reform policy.
- Communicating with affected interests.
- Simplifying business regulations to reduce formalities and red tape inhibiting business start-ups, market entry, and growth.
10:30 - 12:30
Panel 1: Implementing good regulation principles
Framework principles can provide guidance to reformers, but the implementation strategy and drivers of reform are often too weak to overcome vested interests and create genuine change in the regulatory bodies. Skilful political leadership and dedicated drivers of reform inside governments are needed to promote and co-ordinate reform programmes. To improve implementation, many governments have established central regulatory co-ordination and management capacities and institutions. These bodies carry out a continuing reform programme that helps national regulatory regimes adjust more quickly. This panel addresses the institutions and mechanisms established by governments to implement policies of regulatory reform.
Among the invited speakers are:
- Phongthep Thepkajana, Minister, Ministry of Justice, Thailand
- Ling Li, Inspector, Department of Treaty and Law, MOFTEC, China
- Akira Kawamoto, Director, Electricity Market Division, Electricity and Gas Industry Department, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan
- Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of Macro Economic Policy Department, CIEM, Vietnam
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch and visits to document tables
13:30 - 15:30
Panel 2: Communicating with affected interests
Transparency is key to regulatory quality. Improved transparency in regulatory decisions and applications help to cure many of the reasons for regulatory failures-capture and bias toward concentrated benefits, inadequate information in the public sector, rigidity, market uncertainty and inability to understand policy risk, and lack of accountability. Transparency helps create a virtuous circle-consumers trust competition more because special interests have less power to manipulate government and markets. Transparency is also considered to be the sharpest sword in the war against corruption. An increase in the activity of civil society-such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs)-has put a higher value on government transparency. New information capacities are permitting the establishment of centralised databases with search engines, electronic filing, and institutional re-engineering through one-stop shops.
Among the invited speakers are:
- Dohoon Kim, Senior Research Fellow, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade
- Maria Teresa Fabregas Fernandez, Enterprise Directorate-General, Unit G/1 Legislative, European Commission
- Roy Jones, Senior Policy Advisor, OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee
15:30 - 16:00
Coffee and visit to document tables
16:00 - 17:45
Panel 3: Simplifying business regulations
Few regulatory reforms are more popular than promises to simplify government red tape. One of the most common complaints from businesses and citizens is the complexity and number of government formalities and paperwork. Government formalities, so-called "red tape" are important tools used by governments to carry out public policies in many policy areas, including safety, health, and environmental protection. However, if they are poorly designed or applied, inefficient, or outdated, they can impede innovation, entry, investment, and create unnecessary barriers to trade, investment, and economic efficiency. Often, procedures are used as anti-competitive measures giving 'insiders' protection in some markets, or as avenues for corruption. Red tape is also disproportionately costlier for smaller businesses than for larger businesses. The result is that national economies are less able to grow, compete, adjust, and create jobs. Reducing red tape and government formalities can produce substantial payoffs. This panel will examine strategies for simplifying business regulations.
Among the speakers will be:
- Darrell Porter, Senior Officer, Office of Regulatory Review, Australia
- Daniel J. Brody, Managing Director, US Information Technology Office and representative of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD
- Adelardo C. Ables, Economist, Department of Finance and Joy Abrenica, Professor, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines
- cordova.ppt, Deputy Head of Programme on Regulatory Reform, OECD Secretariat, Paris
17:45- 18:00
- Trevor Bull, Convenor of APEC Privatisation Forum, Office of State Enterprise & Government Securities, Ministry of Finance, Thailand
- Summary by the Rapporteur
20 September 2001
9:30 - 17:00
Session 2: Improving the Competition Policy Foundation for Regulatory Reform
Chair: Margarito Trillo, Convenor of the Competition Policy and Deregulation Group, APEC and Head of International Relations and Technical Co-operation, INDECOPI (National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property), Peru.
Rapporteur: Frederic Jenny, Vice Chair of the OECD Competition, Law and Policy Committee, Conseil de la concurrence (French Competition Authority).
The APEC Principles to Enhance Competition and Regulatory Reform and the OECD principles of regulatory reform place the strengthening of markets at the centre of sustainable growth. For both groups of economies, regulatory reform and enhanced competition were important tools as part of a larger recovery strategy. Both the OECD and APEC principles recognise the importance of parallel reforms in competition policy, market openness, public sector performance, and corporate governance.
This session will examine the integration of competition policy into the general policy framework for regulation. Competition policy is central to regulatory reform, because its principles and analysis provide a benchmark for assessing the quality of economic and social regulations, as well as motivate the application of the laws that protect competition. Moreover, as regulatory reform stimulates structural change, vigorous enforcement of competition policy is needed to prevent private market abuses from reversing the benefits of reform. A complement to competition enforcement is competition advocacy, the promotion of competitive, market principles in policy and regulatory processes. It is divided into three panels:
- Integrating competition principles into regulatory reform programmes through competition advocacy and advice.
- Pro-competition restructuring of public utilities to create competitive markets of former government monopolies and to regulate residual natural monopoly elements with access regimes.
- Creating effective regulators for public utilities, including the relationship between the competition authority and sectoral regulators.
9:30 - 11:15
Panel 1: Integrating competition principles into regulatory reform programmes
Competition authorities can be valuable allies in regulatory reform. Through general advocacy and enforcement actions, they can attract attention to problems created by poor regulation. When reforms are implemented, they can use enforcement and publicity to ensure that the objectives of reform are achieved. To be effective, competition authorities must develop capacities for advocacy inside governments, be able to intervene where more competition would benefit consumers, and effectively enforce the law. Adequate resources are necessary if they are to be effective. This panel addresses how competition authorities can develop an effective advocacy role within the public administration.
Among the invited speakers are:
- Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Minister, Ministry for Antimonopoly Policy and Support of Entrepreneurship, Russian Federation
- Xin Hua Wei, Deputy Director, Department of Policies, Laws, and Regulations, State Economic and Trade Commission, China
- Rory McLeod, Manager, Competition Policy, Competition and Enterprise Branch, Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand
- Armando Cáceres, Chief of the Sectoral Reform Co-ordination Program, Ministry of Economics and Finance and former Convenor of the Competition Policy and Deregulation Group (CPDG), Peru.
11:15 - 11:30
Coffee and visits to document tables
11:30 - 13:15
Panel 2: Pro-competition restructuring of public utilities
Liberalisation of public utilities such as transport, energy, and communications can produce many benefits, including cost efficiency, better service, greater product variety, enhanced innovation, and lower prices for consumers and users. A problem is that the full benefits of liberalisation may not be achieved or enjoyed by consumers if the incumbent controls a bottleneck in the production process, such as the electricity grid or gas storage facilities or if there are regulatory inconsistencies of the different levels of the sector that cause regulatory failure. Decisions critical to how the market will develop are made very early in the liberalization process, when the government decides on how to restructure the incumbent firm and decide the regulatory framework. If the government breaks up the incumbent firm and mandates ownership separation among essential facilities and networks, competition will emerge more quickly and with less regulatory oversight. If a vertically integrated monopoly is left intact, many years of heavy handed and difficult regulatory oversight will be needed to defend market entry. Regulation is not a substitute for getting the structure right from the very beginning. Regulation is also subject to potential failure. This panel will examine the importance of restructuring public utilities to maximise the benefits of market liberalisation.
- Pablo Serra, University of Chile, Chile
- Tetsuzo Yamamoto, Waseda University, Japan
- Cindy R. Alexander, Economist, US Department of Justice, USA
- David Parker, Competition Law and Policy, OECD Secretariat
13:15 - 14:30
Lunch and visits to document tables
14:30 - 16:15
Panel 3: Creating effective regulators for public utilities
One of the most highly regarded institutions of modern regulatory governance is the independent regulatory body, often used in utility sectors with network characteristics such as energy and telecoms, and in other sectors where sector-specific prudential oversight is needed such as financial services. Dozens of these bodies have been set up in OECD economies in the last few years alone. This trend is fueled by WTO agreements, by reforms in Europe from the Single Market, and by policy advice by the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, and other international institutions. The reasons for setting up these bodies-to shield market interventions from political interference and to improve transparency, stability, and expertise-are well known. There is little doubt that, compared to regulatory functions embedded in line ministries without clear mandates for consumer welfare, the independent regulators are a sound improvement. It is telling that the market impacts of market-opening have been greatest in precisely those sectors-financial services and telecommunications-where independent regulators are most prevalent, though the causality is not clear. But independent regulators have not resolved many serious regulatory failures, and they have created new potential problems that have not been adequately assessed. This panel will examine the design of effective independent regulators, particularly their relationship to competition authorities.
- Michael Cosgrave, General Manager, Telecommunications Group, Australian Competition & Consumer, Australia
- Scott Jacobs, Managing Partner, Jacobs and Associates, USA
- Bernard Phillips, Head of Division, Competition Law and Policy, OECD Secretariat
16:15- 16:30
- Summary by the Rapporteur
16:30 - 17:00
Margarita Trillo, APEC Convenor of the Competition Policy and Deregulation Group (CPDG), Peru
Rolf Alter, Head of Programme on Regulatory Reform, OECD
Sally Shelton-Colby, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD
Xiaozhun Yi, Director General, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, China
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