Cross-Cutting Competition Issues in Regional Industrial Development

This paper examines the competition law enforcement record of nine authorities in southern Africa over a three-year period (2014-2016), including the main sectors and conduct identified in cases handled by different authorities. The information on cases is considered in the context of regional industrial development and integration, and recent research on regional value chains in southern Africa, highlighting the key challenges of competition law enforcement and the primary resource, institutional and legislative constraints faced by authorities. Drawing from publically available sources and data collected through detailed interviews with competition authorities, the paper finds that although firms are playing an important role in the process of economic integration of the region, control and abuse of market power in different value chains undermine efforts to develop domestic producers and suppliers capable of integrating into wider value chains. This paper sheds light on the inter-relationship between competition and industrial policy in regional integration, and the role, capacities and practical challenges of competition authorities in this regard. It argues that the SADC Regional Industrialisation Roadmap should incorporate concrete measures to increase the capacity of competition authorities to deal with anticompetitive conduct, and that competition law enforcement, given significant constraints, should be considered in conjunction with other interventions to lower barriers and support entry of new rivals in different sectors.