Trust-busting remains off the governmental agenda in Hong Kong, but competitive practices are being encouraged as good for business at the General Chamber of Commerce.
The business group issued a statement yesterday urging its 4,000 members to refrain from restrictive practices and calling on them to develop, on a sector-by-sector basis, self-regulatory codes of competitive practice and complaint-handling procedures. Eden Woon Yi-teng, the chamber's director, described the proposals as a 'voluntary statement of principles' and argued against the enactment of a competition law designed to guard against monopolies and cartels.
'We consider a self-regulatory approach preferable to a legislative approach,' he said. 'The experience of other countries suggests many administrative problems will be encountered in enforcing a competition law.' In 1997, the Government ruled out the drafting of an all-embracing competition law, as proposed by the Consumer Council. Instead, it chose to set up, under the Financial Secretary, a Competition Policy Advisory Group that has no statutory backing and no investigative power.
The Consumer Council welcomed the General Chamber's proposals yesterday but stood by its long-standing call for the provision of legal remedies.
Ray Cameron, the head of the council's trade-practices division, said that self-regulation had a role to play in combatting corporate collusion by providing information useful in formulating a practicable competition policy.
But it had its limits, he said, pointing to a passage from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.
