COMPETITION AND ECONOMIC REGULATIONS
COURSE OVERVIEW
Until the late 1980s, all countries around the world except the United States of America (USA) and Canada viewed public utilities like telecommunications, electricity and water as natural monopoly and relied on state ownership. Performance of these state-owned monopoly public utilities in terms of finances and service penetration during the natural monopoly era was very poor, and there was no any new technology innovation developed. For example, tele-density of fixed telecommunications lines; that is, the number of fixed telephone lines connected per 100 inhabitants, during the monopoly era in most of developing countries was 0.3. Beside low value of fixed telephone line tele-density, most of the state owned monopoly utility companies in most of the developing countries were indebted heavily.
In early 1990s, market reforms in the public utilities (telecommunications, electricity and water) took place to improve the financial and service performance of the public utilities. The market reforms liberalized the public utilities and brought them up to competition. The competition brought up new private utility companies into the markets and a paradigm shift of the economy from the natural monopolies and state ownership to a market-oriented and private sector led economy. Therefore, this course presents amongst others the following:
- the performance of the public utilities during the natural monopoly era;
- the market reforms in public utilities that took place in the early 1990s that brought the paradigm shift from the natural monopolies and state ownership to the market-oriented and
private sector led economy; - Competition Issues in the market- oriented and private sector led economy; and
- Economic Regulations that can be applied to promote effective competition in the market oriented and private sector led economy. For example, choice of the of the Optimum Gearing Ratio (OGR) to bring foreign investments to the country: the case of Europe and the United Kingdom (U.K).
PAIN POINTS
The market oriented and private sector led economy is a new phenomenon to all countries around the world except the USA and Canada as mentioned above. Therefore, the need for this course is justified to provide the countries in particular Rwanda, knowledge and skills for managing effectively the competition in the market-oriented and private sector led economy in order to promote effectively economic efficiency of the country and attract foreign investments.
VALUE PROPOSITION
At the end of the course, participants will be able to manage properly the competition in the market oriented and private sector led economy that can promote effectively economic efficiency of Rwanda.
