NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) — A new 150-bedroom Ibis hotel, operated by the Accor Hotels Group, opened in Tbilisi. The Ibis Tbilisi Stadium hotel is the third-largest hotel operating in the Georgian capital. Tourism is booming in Georgia, leading to a surge in hotel construction.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 22 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s former interior minister Irakli Okruashvili was handed another pre-trial detention sentence ahead of his trial in January for abuse of office in a case linked to the murder of Amiran Robakidze in 2004. Mr Okruashvili has been in pre-trial detention since July when he was arrested for organising anti-government protests and rioting.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 11 (The Bulletin) –The EU’s External Action Service which monitors the border near the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia said that tension was rising and criticised the South Ossetian authorities for making inflammatory statements. It said that both sides should show “maximum restraint”. Tension between South Ossetia, which i backed by Russia, and Georgia triggered a war in 2008.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin
NOV. 7 (The Bulletin) — Irish budget airline Ryanair started flying to Georgia. The inaugural flight was from Marseille to Kutaisi, Georgia’s second city which has developed a reputation as a hub for budget airlines flying into Georgia. Ryanair will fly to Kutaisi from Marseille and Bologna twice a week. Tourism has boomed in Georgia this year, driving up the number of airlines flying to the country.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
TBILISI/Nov. 8 (The Bulletin) — Right-wing nationalists in Georgia clashed with police outside a cinema in Tbilisi that was screening a film about a homosexual love affair.
At least one person was injured when protesters threw rocks at people queuing to watch the film at the Amirani cinema in central Tbilisi. Police dressed in riot gear arrested at least 20 people.
Eyewitnesses said that hundreds of anti-gay rights demonstrators blocked the road leading to the cinema.
“Long live Georgia!” and “Shame!” they shouted. Some demonstrators burnt a rainbow flag, a symbol of gay pride. Many were holding crosses. The Orthodox Church, a powerful institution in Georgia, has denounced the film.
The Swedish-Georgian film ‘And then we danced’ documents a love affair between two male ballet dancers in Georgia’s national ballet. The film shows the difficulties of conducting a gay relationship in Georgia where conservative values are rooted into society.
Far-right supporters in Georgia have attacked Gay Pride events in Georgia previously and also targeted foreigners. Although the government and most of the population wants to join the EU, Georgia also has a reputation for sustaining a society which is suspicious of reform.
Critics of the ruling Georgian Dream government have accused it of not doing enough to clamp down in homophobic sentiment in Georgian society. It has previously been supported by the Georgian Orthodox Church and also by nationalist parties.
On his Facebook page, the film’s director, Levan Akin, wrote that these were “dark times”. “Some far right groups and the Church have basically condemned the film and are planning to stop people from entering the sold out screenings,” he wrote.
‘And then we danced’ was released in Europe May and has won numerous awards.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
Shares in Bank of Georgia surged 11% after it reported “outstanding” Q3 results. They are now trading at around the price they were being sold for a the end of August but still significantly below the heights reached in mid-May.
Banking stock in Georgia is sensitive to the country’s economy performance and, although the Georgian economy has grown markedly this year, analysts are concerned that inflation is catching up and will undermine it.
In its Q3 report, Bank of Georgia said, importantly, that it had reduced its exposure to high risk loans and that it was now better positioned to deal with vagaries thrown up by the Georgian economy.
TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia’s local rival, also saw its stock rise by 3.6%.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin
The biggest mover this week was the Georgian lari which fell by half a percentage point to 2.9591/$1, its lowest rate against the US dollar for at least five years.
Analysts said that the drop in lari value was linked to concern about rising inflation that has undermined strong economic growth this year.
Economists also expect the region’s other big currency, the Kazakh tenge, to fall. In a Reuters poll of seven analysts, four said that the tenge would fall further this year. All seven said that it would be trading at a lower value in 12 months time than it does currently.
They said that a government budget gap between spending and income was a concern. Reuters reported that the government deficit was 813b tenge ($2.1b) on Oct. 1, triple the deficit of one year earlier. This has weighed on the performance of the tenge this year which has fallen from 380.96/$1 to nearly 389/$1.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
TBILISI/Nov. 7 (The Bulletin) — London-listed Bank of Georgia said that its Q3 profit was 30% higher this year than in 2018, pushing its shares up by nearly 8%.
The bank, one of the two biggest banks in Georgia, generally performs well if Georgia’s economy is performing well and it has boomed over the past couple of years, helped by a surge in tourism and renewed business confidence after a slump in 2014-16.
In what it described as an “outstanding” quarter, Bank of Georgia said that its income from interest was 1.8% higher than Q3 2018 at 188.7m lari and that there had been a 22% rise in net fee and commission income to 48m lari.
Bank of Georgia CEO, Archil Gachechiladze, said that the bank had shifted from a high yield, high risk loan portfolio to a lower risk and lower yield portfolio.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 7 (The Bulletin) — The hospital unit of Georgia Healthcare, the London-listed private clinic and pharmacy operator, said that it had issued a bond worth 50m lari ($16.9m). Georgia Healthcare has been expanding its pharmacy unit and in a statement said that cash raised by the bond sale would go towards refinancing more expensive debt.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 4 (The Bulletin) — Inflation in Georgia hit 6.9% in October, up from 6.4% in September, the national statistics office said, confirming Central Bank warnings that prices were rising at an unsustainable rate. Georgia’s economy has been booming but inflation has undermined growth and has forced the Central Bank to raise interest rates three times since the start of September.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin