Tag Archives: Georgia

Austrian minister says Georgia should take refugees

TBILISI, MARCH 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Austria’s foreign minister Sebastian Kurz shocked the Georgian government by suggesting in an interview with the German magazine Bild that refugee centres could be set up in Georgia.

The Austrian government later played down the statement as purely hypothetical but not before it had caused consternation in Georgia.

Georgia’s foreign ministry released a statement which said that it was not possible for the country to take in refugees.

“The issue is not on the agenda of Georgia as the implementation of this project is impossible due to the challenges currently facing the country,” the statement said.

Mr Kurz has become popular in Austria for his hardline stance over the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have travelled to Europe from Syria and elsewhere since 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Georgian wine producers tap into Chinese market

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TBILISI, MARCH 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Official data from Georgia showed that its wine producers exported 8.8m bottles of wine in January and February, nearly double the volume during the same period in 2016.

Wine is one of Georgia’s most important exports and the National Wine Agency said that the value of exports in January and February hit $20.5m. This puts Georgia on course for a record year and highlights the success of its export strategy. So successful has the marketing strategy become that rival winemaker Azerbaijan has pledged to mimic it.

Georgia’s wine industry has concentrated its efforts on breaking into new markets where drinkers are acquiring a taste for wine. Top of this list is China. Georgia sold nearly 832,000 bottles of wine to China in Jan. – Feb. and expects the Chinese market to become the second biggest, after Russia, by the end of the year, overtaking Ukraine.

The head of marketing at the Wine Agency, Irakli Cholobargia, said: “China as a market is one of the keys to drive volumes and serve as one of the alternatives to the Russian market on which we would like to be less dependent as far as unstable political relations are concerned.”

The boost in wine exports to China also vindicates advocates of a free-trade deal signed with China in Sept. 2016. Since then Georgian wine companies have signed a series of deals with Chinese companies, including a deal by Badagoni in Nov. 2016 to export 5m bottles of wine.

In 2016, Georgia’s overall exports rose by 38% to 50m bottles. Russia made up 27.2m of this total, Ukraine 8.8m and China 8.3m.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Georgia’s rebel state closes borders

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MARCH 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Abkhazia, one of Georgia’s rebel states, closed two of the three remaining crossing points, drawing criticism from the United States and the EU. Abkhazian officials decided last year to close the border points to improve control over border crossings. Abkhazia also closed two other border crossings in 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Georgian and Euro courts argue over TV channel

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TBILISI, MARCH 2/3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) clashed with Georgia’s Supreme Court after it ordered an opposition TV station to be turned over to a pro-government businessman.

The day after the Georgian Supreme Court’s decision, which free speech activists branded an authoritarian move aimed at gagging Georgia’s most popular TV channel Rustavi-2, the ECHR overruled it and suspend its judgment for a week, an order Georgia’s justice ministry grumpily said it would comply with.

“We will follow this procedure,” Reuters quoted Georgian justice minister Tea Tsulukiani as saying.

The row over the ownership of Rustavi-2 has been moving through Georgia’s courts since 2015. It has focused on a claim by Kibar Khalvashi, a businessman sympathetic to the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, that he had been forced by the government of Mikheil Saakashvili to give up ownership of the TV channel.

On March 2, after several rounds in courts, the Supreme Court ruled that Rustavi-2 should be handed over to Mr Khalvashi.

For Europe, the OSCE and the United States, the forceful switch of Rustavi-2’s ownership to an owner sympathetic to the government was yet more proof that the Georgian Dream has politicised the courts. They have previously accused the Georgian Dream, which has ruled Georgia since 2012, of using the courts to imprison its opponents, claims it has denied,

In a thinly coded warning, the OSCE’s media chief Dunja Mijatovic said: “Possible attempts to influence the editorial policy of Rustavi-2, a major independent media outlet, would seriously undermine the pluralistic media environment.”

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

EU grants visa-free access to Georgia

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FEB 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EU’s Schengen region officially scrapped visas for Georgians, a major policy victory for Georgia’s government. Georgians are now able to visit the 26-country Schengen Zone without a visa.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Inflation starts to climb in Georgia

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MARCH 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Prices in Georgia were 5.5% higher in February 2017 compared to the same month in 2016, the State Statistics Service said, confirming Central Bank predictions of inflation pressure when it raised interest rates last month (March 2). It had set an inflation target of 4% in 2017.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

IMF agrees to fund Georgia

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MARCH 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the end of a two-week mission to Georgia, the IMF agreed a three year $285m funding programme aimed at encouraging economic reform and Western investors. The deal replaces an earlier one that had expired. It should give the Georgian govern- ment an extra level of support as it pulls out of an economic malaise.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Bank of Georgia revenue rises

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FEB. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Bank of Georgia said in its full year 2016 results that its revenues had risen by 17.8% to over 1b lari. Analysts considered this a decent but not overly brilliant annual performance because of the drop in value of the lari, which fell 10.5% against the the US dollar in 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Georgian businesses strive to meet new EU hygiene regulations

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TBILISI, FEB. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s National Food Agency said it had suspended operational licences for 11 meat businesses because they failed hygiene requirements set out under new rules imposed by the EU.

The suspensions show the complexities of trying to bring hygiene standards in Georgia up to EU requirements so that businesses can take advantage of a new deal brought in last year which allows Georgian companies to export directly to Europe.

The 11 business included three slaughterhouses, four meat whole- sale facilities, three catering facilities, and one farmers’ market. On top of that, 34 business operators were fined due to minor infringements.

In an interview with The Conway Bulletin, Kakha Sokhadze, deputy head food safety inspector at the National Food Agency, said many local businesses still need to adapt to the new regulations.

“Because of the obligations we have with the EU, we are increasing the number of inspections and the more you cover, the more you find cases of non-compliance. Business operators should understand that there are new rules and new requirements,” he said.

Last year the EU and Georgia signed an Association Agreement that paved the way for various producers to export goods to the EU. Georgian companies have already signed deals with European importers to send wool and honey.

And the deal with the EU is having a far-reaching impact in Georgia.

Even meat which is not being exported now has to comply with new rules aimed at boosting hygiene.

Various labelling requirements, for example, were brought in on Jan. 1.

To export to the EU, each food category needs to be certified, said Carlo Natale, deputy head of the EU’s delegation in Georgia.

“Each product is approved after several studies and measurements are made in the country of production,” he told the Conway Bulletin. “At the moment we are examining fish and its various types of process- ing. Then, we will examine dairy products. The last one will be beef and meat. They are the most difficult.”

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Thousands protest in Georgian capital to support Rustavi-2 TV channel

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TBILISI, FEB. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — An estimated 10,000 people protested in central Tbilisi against what they said was the attempted silencing of TV channel Rustavi-2’s anti-government rhetoric.

The demonstration was one of the biggest for several years in the Georgian capital and was a reminder that street-level politics are still a potent force in Georgia.

Rustavi-2, one of Georgia’s most popular TV channels and a supporter of the opposition UNM party, suspended broadcasts for two days before the demonstration.

Zaal Udumashvili, deputy director of Rustavi-2 and anchor of its main news program, told the demonstrators that the fight to save it was a fight to save democracy itself.

“Rustavi-2 is back on the air from now on, which means that the channel will never go off again,” he was quoted by media as saying.

“If Rustavi-2 falls, this will not be the fall of only one television. This will mean that there will be no space left for covering your problems, for bringing your problems to the entire country.”

Rustavi-2 is the focus of an ownership struggle currently playing out in the Supreme Court. The protesters said that the Georgian Dream government was trying to seize the channel from Giorgi and Levan Karamanishvili, associates of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, through businessman Kibar Khalvashi. Mr Khalvashi is a former co-owner of Rustavi-2 who says his stake in the TV channel was taken from him illegally.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)