Opeida Zvenyslava. Competition and international trade: complementing trade defense policy with effective competition policy in Ukraine

This chapter focuses on the relationship between competition and international trade. Competition policy is aimed at achieving the most efficient allocation of resources and thereby the maximization of national welfare. The primary goal of trade defense policy, on the other hand, is to assist domestic producers in recovering from the injury caused by imports. In other words, whereas the focus of competition policy is on preserving competition rather than protecting competitors, the main purpose of trade remedies is protecting domestic competitors. The latter often generates negative effects on competition. The chapter looks at the origin of such inconsistency in objectives, which could be found in both World Trade Organization (WTO) and Ukrainian law, and argues that both policies can nevertheless be complementary. To reconcile the conflicting objectives, it is proposed to introduce competition considerations into the trade defense policy of Ukraine by strengthening one of the elements of trade remedy investigations, namely the public interest requirement.
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