Jakarta (11/10) – Indonesia Competition Commission (ICC) is entrusted with the Chair of the ASEAN Expert Group on Competition (AEGC) or the ASEAN competition authorities meeting forum. This October is the 27th AEGC forum and previously ICC was also entrusted to preside over the 26th round of the AEGC forum last March. Raising the theme Safeguarding Competition Policy for Economic Acceleration, ICC will chair various meetings/sessions of AEGC members. In general, the said forum discussed the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy and competition policies in ASEAN Member States.

The AEGC Forum itself constitutes a form of the formalization of a discussion forum with regard to business competition officially announced in 2007. The forum then held routine meetings twice a year since 2008 to discuss the development of technical issues of law enforcement and competition policies in the region in implementing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint. AEGC is within the structure of the Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) and the ASEAN Economic Ministers. As the Chair of the international forum this time, ICC acts as the host country and discusses the most updated development in the implementation of business competition laws and policies in each ASEAN Member State. In addition to the above, ICC also acts as a representative of AEGC in submitting report on the implementation of strategic plans to SEOM and the Committee of the Whole Meeting.

The fairly influential most updated development on the implementation of competition law and policy comes from Cambodia. The Ministry of Trade of Cambodia managed to defend the Competition Draft Law (Bill) in the National Assembly Session as reported in the forum on September 9, 2021. Thereafter, the Cambodian Trade Ministry managed to defend the Competition Draft Law in the Senate on September 20, 2021 and was signed today, October 11, 2021 coinciding with the implementation of the 27th AEGC. This is one of the outstanding milestones for ASEAN. With the commencement of the putting into effect of the competition law in Cambodia, the competition regime in the ASEAN region can be said to be already complete.