Client: AIPEG

In 2014, Svara Institute (formerly Presisi Indonesia) was commissioned by AIPEG to conduct a study on mainstreaming competition policy. We share the same concern with AIPEG that mainstreaming competition is important to ensure that an economic policy has considered and incorporated competition principles in the policy as it leads to improvement in competitiveness through efficiency and contestability. Integrating competition principles into economic polices need to be done in a systematic way applying a coherent policy strategy, that is a strategy with clear and directed policy covering a number of competition topics and wide range of economic sectors.

The study underlines the importance of mainstreaming competition policy by providing illustration of issues emerging in several services sectors (telecommunication services, port and shipping services, financial services, and health services). There are two reasons of why this study focuses on services sectors. First, services sectors contribute significantly in supplying production inputs, either in production of goods or other services. Second, efficiency in services sectors depends on whether the existing regulations have guarantee the (efficiency) outcome. This is often attributed to issues often termed as behind border issues.