The Chairperson, Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP), Rahat Kaunain Hassan has said that the Competition Act, 2010 protects consumers from anti competitive trade practices and urged the business community to assist CCP in identifying the elements involved in exploitation of consumers. She said this while addressing a seminar on Competition Law organised by CCP here on Wednesday.
The CCP chairperson said that competition law fosters productivity and economic efficiency resulting in lower prices for consumers. The point of convergence for competition policy and consumer protection policy is to enhance consumer sovereignty, choice and improvement of services. She added that both competition law and consumer protection law addresses market distortion where situations, transactions and outcomes cause market to fail producing consumer choice. Both target greater economic efficiency, productivity and competitiveness for the nation.
She informed that the Commission has taken a number of enforcement actions in the areas such as deceptive marketing, collusive bidding and cartelization. These enforcement actions were aimed at protecting consumers from exploitation by certain elements in the business community. She urged business community to approach the Commission on consumer issues and help identify anti competitive business practices.
Rahat thanked the Chairman of Consumer Association of Pakistan, Kaukab Iqbal for his efforts to create awareness of the consumer rights. The Commission, in partnership with the Consumer Association of Pakistan, will spread awareness of the Competition Act, 2010.
The President, Consumer Association of Pakistan, Kaukab Iqbal thanked the Commission for coming close to the business community and vowed to extend full co-operation to CCP in implementation of the Competition Law.
He was appreciative of the actions taken by CCP for the consumer protection. The participants of the seminar brought several consumer related issues into the knowledge of CCP, most of them related to deceptive marketing. The CCP Chairperson urged the business community to approach the Commission with information leading to any anti competitive practices and formally file complaints, the Commission will examine the information. Earlier, the officials of CCP Wajeeha Saif and Amun Sikandar gave presentation on the Competition Act, 2010 at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), respectively. They answered various questions raised by the participants of the seminar.