Maritime Cabotage Law
Page 66
CHAPTER 5
The concepts of economic development and competition law
The concepts of economic development and competition law
At the centre of the concepts of economic development and competition law lies the pursuit of facilitating capacity building and fostering the economic empowerment of a geographical entity using domestic and external resources. One may view economic development as the measure of the final product, and competition law as the methodology for achieving that product. There is a noticeable increase in the number of countries embracing competition law as the pathway to economic development. The rationale behind this approach is that liberal and free market policies provide for the unrestrained interaction of competitive forces that will yield the best allocation of economic resources, best market prices and high quality of goods and services within a conducive business and market environment.1 However, this should not be taken to mean that competition law is necessarily the basis for triggering economic development. Moreover, while competition law may have been useful in sustaining the economic growth in industrialized countries, there is no evidence that it has been the main catalyst of economic development in a developing economy.