The Commission for Protection of Competition conducted a sector inquiry into the retail sale in non-specialized stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating, covering a two-year period (2017-2018). The objective of the inquiry was to establish relations between market competitors in the retail sale in non-specialized stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, in terms of assessing their market share and relative power, as well as to analyze relations between suppliers and selected trade chains with respect to individual product categories.

The recommendations provided by the Commission constitute an integral part of the report, in which the Commission expressed a need for a public trade register that would considerably facilitate the monitoring of this trade segment in the coming period, while also reiterating the importance of cooperation with other government authorities in terms of submitting all relevant legislation and regulations for the provision of legal opinions.

The Commission wishes to express its gratitude to all undertakings for their timely and proper submission of requested data during the inquiry drafting process, and concomitantly invites all undertakings and other members of the expert public to submit their commentaries to the report, as well as to give proposals and suggestions for the follow-up reports, no later than February 28, 2020, to the email address: office.kzk@kzk.gov.rs, with the subject line: Comments to the sector inquiry into retail market.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 21(1/6) of the Law on Protection of Competition, the Commission for Protection of Competition conducted an inquiry into competitive conditions in the sunflower production and sales market in the territory of the Republic of Serbia for the period 2016-2018.

The purpose of the inquiry was to gain an understanding of the sunflower production and sales market, from a market structure perspective and by observing the market shares of individual market participants, as well as to analyze the trends in sunflower purchase prices during the period observed. The inquiry covered the data on production, purchase, import, and export of sunflower seeds, as well as on the export and import of raw and refined sunflower oil during the period observed.

The inquiry used data provided by the Ministry of Finance – Customs Administration on the import and export of sunflower and sunflower oil, in addition to publicly available information provided by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia on the sunflower and sunflower oil production, as well as information provided by undertakings – sunflower buyers and producers, namely: Dijamant AD from Zrenjanin, Vital AD from Vrbas, Sunce AD from Sombor, Banat AD from Nova Crnja, Victoriaoil AD from Šid, Bimal Trading doo from Belgrade, and Bimal Agri doo from Bečej.

The Commission wishes to express its gratitude to all undertakings for their timely and proper submission of requested data during the inquiry drafting process, and concomitantly invites all undertakings and other members of the expert public to submit their commentaries to the report, to the email address: office.kzk@kzk.gov.rs, with the subject line: Comments to the inquiry into sunflower market.

Noting the importance of this crop for the development of food industry and the overall industrial development, as well as the conclusions of this inquiry, the Commission will put particular emphasis on due-diligence measures in the future in order to monitor the behavior of undertakings and identify particular circumstances prevailing in this market which might indicate any violation of the Law on Protection of Competition.