On 27 and 28 August, the Competition Authority hosted a Nordic conference on competition matters. The conference was attended by representatives of the competition authorities and ministries responsible for competition matters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland. The conference is part of the annual cooperation between the authorities.
The meeting discussed competition policy, and the Nordic competition authorities regularly address the priorities of competition enforcement, see e.g. the authorities' Joint Report No. 1/2013, A Vision for Competition – Competition Policy towards 2020 and report no. 1/2009, Competition Policy and Financial Crises.
In connection with this discussion, Gylfi Magnússon, an associate professor at the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Iceland and former Minister of Commerce and Economic Affairs, delivered a speech on the bank collapse and the importance of competition in resolving the crisis in Iceland. Gylfi reviewed the current situation and the changes that have taken place since the collapse. He said, among other things, that competition had increased to a certain extent during this time and that the infrastructure now better supported competition than before. However, certain weaknesses still remained. It would be desirable to strengthen competition in various sectors and it is important to get a more diverse and broader group of owners for Icelandic businesses, as Icelandic pension funds begin to invest abroad again. Rarely is the work of competition authorities as crucial to a nation's economy as it is here in Iceland.
The speech can be accessed here.
The conference also specifically addressed competition and competitive incentives in healthcare, taxi markets and waste collection.
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