RACHID Mohamed Rachid, minister of trade and industry, decided to refer cement companies to administerial investigations, accusing them of violating Article 6 in the competition and anti- monopoly law. The decision was taken in response to a report submitted recently from the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) to the minister of trade and industry asserting that cement-producing companies are involved in monopoly acts. Rachid asserted that the government insists on the full application of the anti-monopoly law to protect consumers in all sectors. Rachid announced that the ECA report approved that cement producing companies have colluded to control cement prices. Moreover, Rachid added that they also coordinated to limit the market share of each producing company to control prices. Since these acts are banned by the anti-monopoly law, Rachid presented a request to the prosecutor- general to apply formal investigation procedures against these companies last week. According to the anti-monopoly law, the minister of trade and industry has the right to refer violators of the law to formal investigations. Rachid explained that the ECA inspection of the cement issue was concluded within 14 months during which the ECA collected information and data from different sources in 15 governorates. These data included the local market structure, the productive capacity, the cement dealers, cement cost price, sales figures in local markets, in addition to cement exports. According to Rachid, investigations in such cases in other countries which apply the competition and anti-monopoly law may take 24 months. The story began on 16 July 2006 when Rachid presented a memo to the Egyptian Competition Authority requesting investigations and inspection in both the cement and steel sectors to find out if there are any monopoly acts. Rachid announced that the results of the ECA investigations in the steel case is expected to be announced in December. The penalty for monopoly act is the payment of a fine from LE30,000 to LE10 million.
