On 18 March 2014, at 11.00, withing the premises of theCompetition Council, the round table entitled: Market of wheat and sunflower seeds-problems and solutions took place, event organized by theCompetition Council.

     The participants at the event were Viorel GUȚU Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, Vladimir CEBOTARI Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure, representatives of local public administration, farmers, exporters, transporters, professional associations and civil society and members of the Plenum of the Competition Council.

     Besides stating and removal of anticompetitive practices and actions of unfair competition, theCompetition Councilhas the task of preventing thereof. In view of fulfilling this task, theCompetition Council initiated useful market studies Ăœacquisition, storage and transportation services to wheat and sunflower seeds .

     For the same reasons, the discussions were launched in March which is the beginning of a new agrarian year, the goal of the meeting being the prevention of occurring in the harvest season2014 (august – september) ofproblems faced by participants to these markets in the last sesason (storage problems, namely insufficient space, problems with transportation and export as to reduced transparency at transport means and insufficiency thereof).

     It is worth mentioning the stable situation on the mentioned markets and the existence of stable relationship between farmers and purchasers, noticed within constructive and substantial discussions during the meeting.

     It was encouraging to state the actions carried on for exluding the occurrence of certaing problems on the mentioned markets, including problems of competition, such as:

     –   increasing the fleet of carriages available through a joint action of Ministry of Transport and Roads Infrastructure and SE Calea Ferată din Moldova in order to bring the wagons in the country by means of private investments and measures undertaken in view of establishing a transparent mechanism of wagons distribution;

     –  inclusion in the grant for 2014 of the subsidization of the construction of silos and drying, in order to increase storage capacity;

     – interest on behalf of the group of companies with a dominant position to drawing the contractual clauses and access to their assets .

     Questions showing signs of infringing the Law on Competition were also discussed during the meeting.

     In the end, theCompetition Councilthanks all the participants who agreed to come and who stated problems faced, hoping for a successful collaboration and continuation of such useful discussion within a narrower format.