Brunei gets UN help on economic reform
Brunei is expected to sign a deal with the UN which will see the country get assistance in drafting a competition policy and law (CPL) framework, a senior UN official said.
Such a legal framework will level the playing field and discourage dominant companies from “bullying” the competition, said Hassan Qaqaya, the head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s (Unctad) competition law and consumer policies branch, without specifying a timeline.
Qaqaya, who was speaking on the sidelines of a competition policy workshop at the Rizqun International Hotel in Gadong on Saturday, said an agreement has been reached for Unctad to assist the Brunei government in preparing the competition policy and law also known as the anti-trust and trade regulation law framework and setting up a specific body to oversee its implementation and enforcement.
“We actually agreed yesterday [Friday] that we will sign a cooperation agreement for three years, for Unctad to accompany the agency for three years till it’s actually running and definitely working,” said Hassan, who delivered a talk on competition policy and law in the context of small economies.
He explained that the competition policy framework would have to consider various aspects such as “the overall policy design; understanding what Brunei thinks of competition in general; how it should implement it; and how it should be coherent with industrial policy and with [the] support of medium and small enterprises, and public enterprises. We are working with the government to prepare this,” he said.
Other aspects of the Memorandum of Cooperation to be signed with the Prime Minister’s Office include drafting the competition law as well as building human capacity to man the proposed competition agency or commission.
“First [we have] to finalise the law, and then to train staff [and] to set up the agency, to train the commissioners, to set up the library, electronic equipment, to do study tours and so on,” said Hassan.
