JEDDAH: Acting Secretary-General of the Competition Council, Dr. Muhammad Al-Qasim, stressed that the Council prohibits all agreements, orally and written, of practices that take place between traders when they’re found to be breaching the competition system. He said these agreements will be found out when they are seeking to limit merchants or obstruct competition between establishments.

He said the competition system also applies to companies partially owned by the state with the exception of public corporations and government companies that are totally owned by the state.

“Since it started operations, the Competition Council has only received one application of exemptions, and the Council has the right to apply rulings on certain practices and agreements that obstruct competition. The purpose of this is to improve the performance of facilities to produce the maximal benefit to the consumer and not to limit the process of competing,” Al-Qasim said at a meeting held in the Jeddah Chamber last week.

He added that the committees in industrial and commercial sectors, the Council of Saudi Chambers, and those in trade and industry chambers as well as associations have to take extra care to ensure that their exchanges of information do not negatively affect competition. Any coordination has to be done objectively because such information is very delicate.

“There are many obligations on these committees and their members, event to the extent that some of their members may need to leave the meetings being held because of the sensitivity of such information,” he said. Al-Qasim added that these committees must work on with principles of transparency and high standards.