CONTROL OF ECONOMIC CONCENTRATION AS A FORM OF SUPPORTING MARKET COMPETITION

The article studies the problems of economic concentration and protection of competition in the national economy. The article focuses on the fact that in the conditions of globalization of the world economy, competition of enterprises-commodity producers is intensifying. Competition naturally arises in the market and, at the same time, it is a prerequisite for its existence and development; it systematically leads to lower individual production costs, to save resources, and to seek the most rational combination of factors used in production. The sharpening of the competition for product sales forces business entities to constantly seek new opportunities and reserves for the marketing of their products, to improve technology for the creation of quality goods in order to increase the ability to win in a competitive struggle. The article emphasizes that not every competition contributes to the efficient functioning of the market: unfair competition has a negative impact on the economy. A valuation of the activity of any entity in a competitive environment is conducted by a buyer who, having been guided by his/her own interests, prefers the goods of a competitor. One of the main ways to increase the competitiveness of an enterprise is the economic concentration of economic entities, which manifests itself in the consolidation of the size of enterprises that can lead to monopolization of markets. The author draws attention to the fact that any business entity is characterized by the desire to monopolize, to supplant a competitor from the market, and to expand its sphere of activity. By strengthening the market power, entrepreneurs aspire to establish the control over the prices and factors that determine the company’s activities in the market. The ultra-high monopolization weakens the market competition. The most important means of solving this problem is carrying out a consistent, economically sound antimonopoly policy, in particular by developing a system of restrictions on economic concentration, and so on. It is proved that the most important tasks of the state policy in the field of increasing competitiveness can be determined by removing barriers to the entrepreneurial activity and improving the legislation on the protection of economic competition. A particular attention is paid to the analysis of the main approaches to and disadvantages of effective state control over economic concentration in order to prevent the restriction of competition, the emergence and strengthening of monopolization, the reasonable protection of the markets, and the identification of their advantages and disadvantages.