Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgia gives Anaklia partners more time to name financers

DEC. 17 2019 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s government extended to Dec. 31 a deadline for the partners developing the Anaklia port on the Black Sea to submit new loan agreements after they missed a Dec. 16 deadline. The Anaklia was supposed to be the biggest infrastructure project built in Georgia, opening it up to more East-West cargo traffic, but instead each side has accused the other of undermining progress. The partners are TBC Holding, the US’ SSA Marine, Britain’s Wondernet Express and Bulgaria’s G-Star.
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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Georgia raises interest rates

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DEC. 12 2019 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank increased its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 9%, its highest level for at least 10 years. This year, the Georgian Central Bank has increased its interest rate from 6.5% in an effort to dampen inflation which it partly blames on its weak currency. It said that inflation now measured 7% and would not fall until March 2020. >> See page 8

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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Georgian Dream supporters rally against opposition

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DEC. 2 (The Bulletin) — Supporters of the Georgian Dream government coalition rallied in central Tbilisi against anti-government protesters who have been demonstrating since the end of last month when parliament voted against introducing election reforms called for by the opposition. Analysts are increasingly worried that street-level politics has become the norm in Georgia.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Markets: LAri pushes up to highest level since August

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DEC. 9 (The Bulletin) –The Georgian lari pushed up 2% to its highest level since mid-August, propped up by the Central Bank which sold $20m at the end of November. The Georgian Central Bank has been under pressure to intervene to stop the slide of the lari, which has fallen by around 9% this year. It now trades at 2.9225/$1. It started the year at 2.6651/$1.

The region’s other currencies were steady, including the Kazakh tenge. Its Central Bank left interest rates at 9.25%, saying that it needed to keep them relatively high in order to fight off inflation which it warned could be a problem. It is currently around 5.5% but could hit 6% in 2020, the Central Bank said.

Kazakhstan’s Central Bank also said that a widening current account deficit was also restricting its room for manoeuvre. It said that the deficit would widen to 3.1% of GDP next year from 2.2% this year.

The tenge was unmoved at 386.1/$1 but is still down from 381/$1 at the start of the year.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Comment: Ivanishvili has not learnt from Saakashvili

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–The power behind Georgia’s government, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has started to employ the tactics once used by Mikheil Saakashvili to try to cling onto power, writes Will Dunbar

DEC. 9 (The Bulletin) — They say the only lesson we learn from history is that we never learn from history, and this certainly seems to be the case for Bidzina Ivanishvili, the neo-feudal ruler of Georgia.

Back in 2011 and 2012, Ivanishvili fought a bitter campaign against the increasingly unpopular government of Mikheil Saakashvili. Facing defeat, Saakashvili tried everything to stay in power, manipulating electoral laws and funding rules, demonising Ivanishvili and allies on regime-friendly broadcasters, and sending out teams of thugs to threaten and intimidate oppositionists trying to campaign in the regions. Ivanishvili’s coalition won the election with 54% of the vote.

Eight years later, and with a government even more unpopular than that of Saakashvili’s, Ivanishvili has dusted off his nemesis’s playbook in a likely-doomed attempt to save his tattered, wayward government.

Last month Ivanishvili set off protests when he backed down on a much-heralded promise of electoral reform designed to ensure that parliament represents the will of the voters.

The last election saw Ivanishvili’s party win 45% of the vote and 75% of the seats, which most people thought was unfair. Almost 80% of Georgians support changing the system, and Ivanishvili’s about-face unleashed paroxysms of anger.

As opposition demonstrations have gathered pace across the country they are increasingly met by crowds of athletic young men hurling bottles, eggs and broomsticks, a clear echo of the 2012 election and a tactic that did Saakashvili no favours in the end.

Just like in 2012, hyperventilating and sycophantic TV stations attempt to present the diverse opposition coalition as bringers of the apocalypse, claiming that only Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party can save the country from civil conflict, even as that party fans the flames.
Ivanishvili is doomed to fail in this effort.

He has only two choices now. To properly steal next year’s election, mobilising his hired thugs to stuff ballot boxes and intimidate voters or to accept the will of the people, allow his pet party to be defeated at the polls and to begrudgingly relinquish power. Ultimately, arch-rival Saakashvili did the right thing and chose the second option in 2012, in what was Georgia’s first democratic transfer of power. Georgians hope that Ivanishvili can follow this example.
>> Will Dunbar is a Tbilisi-based journalist and analyst
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Court case begins against TBC Bank founders in Georgia

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DEC. 2 (The Bulletin) — The court case against TBC Bank founder Mamuka Khazarde and his deputy Badri Japaridze for corruption and money laundering began in Tbilisi. Both men deny the charges which they have said are politically motivated. TBC Bank is one of Georgia’s biggest banks and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline opens

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BAKU/Nov. 30 (The Bulletin) –Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially marked the completion of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) which will pump gas from the South Caucasus across Turkey to Europe.

TANAP is the longest section of the 3,500km-long $38b Southern Gas Corridor. The first section connecting the BP-operated Shah Deniz II gas field in the Caspian Sea to Erdine, in eastern Turkey has already been open and next year the final section, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, running across Greece and the Balkans to Italy, will open.

In a speech in Ipsala, on the Turkey-Greece border, Mr Aliyev said that the project, which will give Azerbaijan’s economy a major boost through gas sales, was more than just a gas transit pipeline.

“This project leads to cooperation, stability, long-term mutual understanding, and it would be wrong to consider these projects simply as energy projects,” he said according to a statement on his website.

Construction of the pipeline, one of the world’s longest energy pipeline was started four years ago and has had the financial backing of European countries, the EU and various financial institutions such as the EBRD.

European countries want an alternative energy source to Russia, which has been their primary provider of gas.

When the Southern Gas Corridor does open next year it will pump an estimated 10b cubic metres of gas to Europe, enough power for up to 10m households.
TANAP’s shareholders are Azeri state energy company Socar with a 51% stake, Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS with a 30% stake, BP with 12% and Socar Turkey with 7%.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Comment: The CSTO has always lacked relevance

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Other than spreading Russian influence, the CSTO is a military alliance lacking a clear mission. Opportunities to impose itself and carve out an identity have been missed, writes James Kilner.

NOV. 29 (The Bulletin) — For a military organisation that can pull together regular summits which include Russian President Vladimir Putin, the CSTO is oddly anaemic. On Nov. 28, the heads of states of the six members of the CSTO met in Bishkek for a summit that was only vaguely relevant.

This is a military organisation led by Russia which has dodged intervention on its doorstep and inside its borders. It currently doesn’t even have a permanent Secretary-General to lead it.

The CSTO, or to give it its full name the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union as something of a Warsaw Pact light, very light. It was supposed to impose a military pact over the rump of the Soviet Union that wasn’t looking West and to NATO. But its origins and ambitions have always been confused.

A CIS military grouping was formed after the Tashkent Pact of 1992, with Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia as members. When it came to be renewed in 1999, though, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan declined. This meant that when the CSTO was finally created in 2002 there were also only six members and it was dominated by Russia.

Recent inaction by the CSTO has also undermined its cause. The CSTO stood by in 2010 when fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, killed several hundred people and forced thousands of ethnic Uzbek to flee. Often too, as in Ukraine and Georgia, Russia is a belligerent, or backs a belligerent, in a conflict, forcing CSTO peacekeeping missions off the table.

Even when there is cooperation within the CSTO, it is couched as bilateral. Armenia has sent 100 deminers and doctors to support Russian rebuilding in Syria but other countries declined and the deal is considered to be between Russia and Armenia directly.

Of course, it doesn’t help that since the start of this year, the CSTO has been without a Secretary-General. Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian former CSTO Secretary-General, is currently standing trial for “subverting the constitution” in Yerevan in 2008 when police killed at least 14 protesters. Members of the CSTO haven’t been able to agree on a replacement.

The CSTO holds value to Russia for helping it to spread political influence and to sell its military products, but as a militarily operational group it is largely irrelevant.

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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Wyndam to open new hotels across the region

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NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Wyndam Hotels, one of the world’s biggest hotel franchises, plans to open new sites in Georgia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan over the next couple of years, media reported. In total, Wyndam wants to add 35 hotels with 5,700 bedrooms to its portfolio with Georgia being the focus of this growth. It said that it will build seven new hotels with 1,300 bedrooms in Georgia.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Anti-government protests block parliament

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NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) — Thousands of anti-government protesters in Tbilisi continued to blockade Georgia’s parliament as they demonstrated against what they said were promises broken by the Georgian Dream coalition government. This month Parliament voted against introducing a proportional representation system early, at parliamentary elections next year, rather than waiting until 2024 as had previously been agreed.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.