This two-day conference explores the role and importance of competition policy in fostering speedier economic adjustment and recovery. Competition policy encompasses several micro-economic industrial and commercial policies such as economic regulation, privatization, antitrust, and international trade. The application and interface between these and other related policies have a significant bearing on industrial structure and the competitive market performance of enterprises in both the private and public sector, and on economic development generally. The macro-economic and financial aspects of the crisis affecting many countries are often rooted in the lack of a coherent policy approach towards the industrial and corporate sectors. however, the instruments of competition policy applied in more advanced and industrial nations cannot be simply transplanted in transition countries.