Food industry on MyCC's menu this year

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) will look into escalating food prices this year as Malaysians grapple with rising cost of living.
“We’ll identify the most critical sub-sectors for us to address the cost of living,” MyCC member Dr Saadiah Mohamad told a press conference today after the launch of market review reports on the pharmaceutical and building materials industries.
This will be MyCC’s latest effort to determine anti-competitive behaviour following the completion of its market review study on the pharmaceutical and building materials sectors, which found that there was no conclusive evidence of anti-competitive behaviour by the industry players.
MyCC is also expected to conduct market review study on the transport and services industries by 2020.
MyCC director of enforcement Iskandar Ismail said competition in the building materials industry is mainly shaped by a few characteristics, namely no threat of product substitution, minor differentiation in products, territorial-based operations, vertical integration as a common business strategy and limited entry of new players in the upsteam manufacturing industry.
On recommendations, he said the market needs to assess regularly the steel industry in China; explore incentives and measures that will encourage the steel players to improve efficiency and competitiveness; monitor cement price when the demand is high; and promote the usage of local building materials.
Meanwhile, MyCC head of business & economic division Junaidah Mohd Shazili is urging the strengthening of the local pharmaceutical industry with more exports in a bid to reduce medicine prices to more reasonable levels.
In 2006, RM2.3 billion of pharmaceutical products were imported, accounting for 68% of pharmaceutical sales.
Given the various studies that have shown Malaysian drug prices are high by international standards and significant price variations exist between providers, MyCC opined that there is a need for a coherent price policy that should be part of the National Medicines Policy.
In addition, MyCC can play a vital role in coordinating with other relevant agencies to address issues that interface between competition law, intellectual property law and health regulations.
Currently 14 cases are under probe by MyCC involving various industries including pharmaceutical, services and financial products.