TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR THE JAMAICA FTC ON COMPETITION ADVOCACY

Lear is providing technical assistance to the Jamaica’s Fair Trading Commission (“FTC”) to strengthen its skills on competition advocacy. A key step of the Project has been completed early this month: the stakeholders’ consultation, which is part of the acquisition of information on the current state of competition advocacy in Jamaica.

The stakeholders’ consultation took place in two waves: first, an online Survey, designed by Lear; second, a series of meetings in Kingston between Lear’s experts and local stakeholders. The online Survey has been disseminated among about a hundred of potential stakeholders, selected from Government departments and regulatory bodies, public and private businesses, trade and professional associations, academia and the press. Sixty-four responses have been collected from September 26^th to November 7^th, 2018.

As to the second wave of the stakeholders’ consultation, a workshop and stakeholders’ one-to-one interviews took place in Kingston from October 30 to November 1^st, 2018. Both the Survey and the meetings have explored the general perception and specific features of the FTC’s role and of its past advocacy initiatives, as well as the current level of awareness of competition benefits among the general public and the understanding of competition law among firms. Lear will use the information collected to identify areas of improvement in the activity carried out by the FTC, with respect to international benchmarks, and design recommendations for a new strategy for competition advocacy.