CCP shares draft report focusing on SME Policy 2020

ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Friday shared its draft report, ‘Promoting Economic Efficiency of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan’ at the 22nd meeting of the Competition Consultative Group.

The report draws a comparison between the SME Policy 2007 and the new Draft SME Policy 2020 and offers recommendations under the CCPs mandate to further improve the draft SME Policy Framework.

CCP Chairperson Rahat Kaunain Hassan chaired the meeting, which was attended by CCP members Shaista Bano, Bushra Naz Malik, Mujtaba Ahmad Lodhi, the director generals and heads of departments, and a wide range of stakeholders.

Hassan briefed participants about CCP’s strategic vision. She said apart from enforcement and policy intervention, other key areas of focus included essential commodities. The CCP focused on removing anti-competitive distortions in the market, reducing collusive practices and promoting fair competition and concession agreements for regulating exclusivity.

She further said that CCP has initiated the process of hiring sectoral specialists in around 12 sectors, ie automobile, cement, energy (electric power and renewable energy), ghee-cooking oil, sugar, wheat, banking, pharmaceutical, poultry, education, road construction, and steel.

She also briefed on the CCP’s initiative to develop and declare e-commerce policy guidelines to build consumer confidence in the electronic marketplace and encourage fair trade practices to prevent any possible abuse and deceptive marketing practices in the e-commerce domain. The CCP shared with the participants that the past year has been the year of enforcement.

From July 2020 to June 2021, the CCP completed 20 enquiries, initiated 21 new enquiries, conducted 12 search and inspections, issued 120 show-cause notices, completed hearings of 82 sugar mills in the sugar cartelisation case, and has passed four orders.