PM presents Head of the Antimonopoly Committee Yurii Terentyev

On Monday, May 25, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk presented Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine Yurii Terentyev.

The Prime Minister urged a newly elected Chairman of the AMC along with employees of the Antimonopoly Committee "and necessarily with involving your departments to communicate directly with people and conduct a serious public policy."

He has stressed that the monopoly in politics "makes former presidents flee to Russia": "As one who wants to take everything - actually stops the development of a country, becomes a dictator, thus people rise up against him and he disappears or appears then in the Hague tribunal."

Monopoly in the economy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk noted, "is when you do not have the right to choose": "There is only one subject who received some powers, including from the state. You want to purchase any product and you can buy it only in this company. You want to get any service, for instance, electrical connections or connection to gas - and you can go only in one company. You want to buy cheaper drugs, and you find out that all pharmaceutical companies set prices for these medical products according to collusion between the major sellers of certain drugs. There are not tens but hundreds of such examples."

"Both political and economic monopoly leads to political bankruptcy and economic impoverishment," he stressed.

The Prime Minister emphasized that at this stage "we managed to destroy the political monopoly": "Anyone who wants to regain the political powers that had the previous government, will be doomed to failure, because democracy is the basis for the development of normal society."

"Competition means democracy in the economy. We need not one, but dozens of companies. We need not monopoly, but competition. We need competition between companies concerning which service to provide, of which quality and what price to charge for this service. Someone will choose a more quality service for higher price, someone will choose a cheaper one - but it's the right of choice," he highlighted.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized that the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has a task to provide the right of choice for Ukrainians.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined that since achieving its independence, Ukraine had created "monopolistic cartels, which were based both on economic and political collusions." "Your task is to break these cartels, to eliminate anticompetitive collusions, to bring to light all those behind this, as well as to enable businesses to develop freely and have equal access to all resources," the Prime Minister asked the Head and staff of the Ukraine’s AMC.

Among the main tasks the Head of Government called the elimination of monopolistic collusion and non-competitive activities on the energy market, "Regional gas enterprises are actually and legally abusing their monopoly position in the market. Electric power companies, under some expert estimates, are also abusing their monopoly position in the market. "

"That’s why demonopolization of the state energy sector in gas, electricity, and oil and petroleum products should be one of the tasks of the Antimonopoly Committee. And this is what will enable people to get cheaper and better services," he stressed.

"Our ultimate goal is a businessman and a person as a recipient of services. If we think in this format, then we will have a very positive result and perception of our activities in society," he added.

The second block of issues for the AMC, the Prime Minister stressed, concerns demonopolization of the market of drugs and medical products, "This applies to both collusion in the pharmaceutical market, and the issue of quality of medicines and drugs."

On this issue, Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined, the Antimonopoly Committee should work jointly with the State Service for Medical Products and the Health Ministry.