Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgian police arrests priest accused of plotting assassination

TBILISI, FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian police arrested Deacon Giorgi Mamaladze, a Georgian Orthodox priest, on suspicion of planning to assassinate a senior member of the Church, potentially even Patriarch Ilia II, shocking this deeply religious country.

Deacon Mamaladze was arrested at the Tbilisi National Airport after an informant said that he was travelling to Germany carrying cyanide. Patriarch Ilia is recuperating in Germany after an operation on his gall-bladder.

In a statement, Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze said: “A citizen contacted the Prosecution Service of Georgia and stated that his/her acquaintance, Father Giorgi, had asked him/her for help in obtaining the life-threatening poisonous substance cyanide. As the person who submitted the statement had found out during the meeting, Father Giorgi was to murder a high-ranking clergyman using the aforementioned substance.”

Mr Shotadze, the prosecutor, did not name Ilia II but media immediately suspected that he was the target because of the Germany link.

Politicians have also fed the febrile air of conspiracies and counter conspiracies. PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said security around Ilias II, Georgia’s figurehead and one of its most powerful people, was to be beefed-up.

“Given the extraordinary nature of this situation, I delegated my personal security detail to Berlin,” he said in an official statement. “We have averted a calamity, a treacherous attack on the Church, an act against our country, has been prevented.”

Father Mamaladze has denied the accusations.

There was also scepticism on the streets of Tbilisi. Tsiuri, a 24-year-old lawyer, said infighting was to blame.

“Although I do not trust Mamaladze, I am sure that this entire thing was staged. Two weeks ago some rumours spread about a possible assassination attempt against the Patriarch,” he said. “Our church is fractured and different groups are fighting for power. Somebody was trying to put Mr. Mamaladze offside by discrediting him.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

UNM protesters march in Georgian capital

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Georgia detained 13 people during a rally organised by the United National Movement party (UNM), the party of the exiled former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. The demonstration, outside the city hall, was attended by 100 people and had been called to voice support for the Rustavi-2 TV station which they accuse the government of trying to control.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

S. Ossetia court sentences Georgian man

FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia sentenced a Georgian man to 20 years in jail for sabotage and terrorism, media reported, in a move that is likely to inflame tensions with Tbilisi. The man, 49 year-old Giorgi Giunashvili, was accused of slipping over the de facto border between South Ossetia and Georgia to attack targets. The Georgian government has called the imprisonment illegal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Stock market: KAZ Minerals, Georgia Healthcare

FEB. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia Healthcare’s shares surged 8.4% to near an all-time high of 379/$1 after earnings results showed that it had tripled its pretax profit in the fourth quarter of last year thanks to organic growth and acquisitions.

It also said that by the end of 2018, it expects to have doubled its revenues compared to 2015.

Long a favourite for investors looking to invest directly into the South Caucasus, Georgia Healthcare stock gives them a slice of the growing Georgian private healthcare sector.

The only downside of the earnings results was a pretax loss for its insurance division. Still, analysts were bullish. Jefferies increased its target price on Georgia Healthcare to 435p from 420p. Numis Securities stuck with its target price of 420p.

The other big mover of the week was KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused copper producer, which finished up 5.7% at 559p. On Tuesday its shares had peaked at 592p, its highest level for nearly four years.

Copper prices have recovered since they started to fall in mid- 2015. KAZ Minerals also announced the start-up of new production in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Georgia Healthcare posts strong 2016 results

TBILISI, FEB. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In its full year results, London-listed Georgia Healthcare said that revenue had risen by 75% and that the company was well- placed for more growth in 2017 and 2018.

The Tbilisi-based company, which is part-owned by Bank of Georgia, did say that results at its insurance business were worse than expected but this didn’t dampen investor enthusiasm for one of the Central Asia/South Caucasus region’s best- performing stocks.

The day after the results, Georgia Healthcare’s share price was up 6.3% at 379p (see Markets on page 12 for more information on Georgia Healthcare’s stock price).

Nikoloz Gamkrelidze, the Georgia Healthcare CEO, said in a statement that a combination of organic growth and acquisitions in the pharmacy and medicines distribution sectors had helped push up revenues to 426.4m lari ($161.5m) and to more than double net profit to 61.3m lari ($23.2m).

“The Group delivered a strong performance in 2016, and remains in good shape to benefit over the next few years from the combination of its position as the largest healthcare services provider, pharmaceuticals wholesaler and retailer and medical insurer in what continues to be a fast-growing, predominantly privately-owned, Georgian healthcare services market,” he said.

Georgia Healthcare listed on the London stock exchange in November 2015 for 170p. It is the largest private healthcare company in Georgia and now operates 13 regional clinics and 28 so-called express clinics. Acquisitions in 2016 in the competitive pharmacy sector has now given is a 29% share of this market.

The one blight on its 2016 results was in the insurance sector which lost 4.9m lari ($1.85m). Mr Gamkrelidze blamed a loss on one contract.

“Our medical insurance business had a more challenging year, particularly reflecting the loss- making impact of one large corporate insurance contract,” he said. “This contract has now expired and has not been renewed.”

Mr Gamkrelidze predicted that the Georgia Healthcare insurance unit will break even in 2017. It has a 35% share of Georgia’s medical insurance market.

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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Georgia signs new deal with Bitfury to develop property register

TBILISI, FEB. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia agreed to forge ahead with a plan to develop a property register using technology that supports the bitcoin virtual currency.

The deal is a gamble for Georgia, which wants to promote itself as a forward-looking and technologically savvy country as bitcoin has been largely discredited, partly because of its association with illegal activities.

The deal that Georgia has struck is an extension of a deal it entered into last year with Bitfury, which engineers the blockchain system used to trade bitcoins.

Although best-known for its association with bitcoin, Bitfury has engineered different uses for its blockchain system which effectively allows people to convert an asset into a certificate that can be traded digitally. The blockchain system takes its name from the technique of recording transactions across multiple computers, forming a chain that would be broken by any attempted fraud.

Papuna Ugrekhelidze, the chairman of the Georgian National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR), said that this was the first time that a national government had signed a deal to use Bitfury’s technology.

“The NAPR will use the world’s latest technology [to] guarantee safe transactions, transparency and flexibility. The process is electronic, in which human agents will not interfere, ensuring its security,” media quoted him as saying.

The deal represents a massive overhaul of Georgia’s property registration system and Mr Ugrekhelidze said that using Bitfury’s technology would reduce the cost of updating the register by 95%.

He didn’t give away any of the specifics of the contract that Bitfury has signed with Georgia.

This is the culmination of a process that started in April last year when Bitfury and Georgia began a trial process. Previously, in 2015, Bitfury said it would invest $100m into a technology park in Tbilisi. It also operates a data centre in Gori, 70km from Tbilisi.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Georgian authorities close Gulen- linked school in Batumi

BATUMI/Georgia, FEB. 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s National Centre for Education Quality Enhancement (NCEQE) stripped the Batumi Refaiddin Şahin Friendship School, operated by a Gulen-affiliated group, of its operating licence, triggering accusations of playing politics.

The school was opened in 1994 and was one of the first Gulen-affiliated school to open in Georgia.Officially, its license is now being revoked due to violations of the student’s enrolment code but others have said that the Georgian government is bowing to pressure from Turkey which blames the Gulen movement for plotting a coup last year.

Elguja Davitadze, director of the Batumi Refaiddin Şahin Friendship School, said the authorities appeared determined to close down the school. “Georgia’s Education Ministry told us to abolish the Turkish section (of the school’s intake) if we wanted to keep our accreditation. We agreed to abolish the Turkish sector gradually, by transferring Turkish students to the Georgian sector, but the ministry said this was a violation and revoked our accreditation,” he was quoted by local media as saying.

He also said education inspectors had been hovering around the school for months, carrying out inspections.

If the Batumi Refaiddin Şahin Friendship School is closed down it will, possibly, be the first Gulen-run school in the country to close since Turkey started putting pressure on its neighbours in Central Asia and the South Caucasus to shut them. In many countries, the Gulen schools of the 1990s are still some of the best.

Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have so far refused to close them while Azerbaijan, one of Turkey closest neighbours, has appeared eager to please.

Shota Utiashvili, a Senior Fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, said that although the Turkish economy is much larger than Georgia’s, Ankara doesn’t control Georgia.

“It is not a hierarchical relationship, it is a partnership and both parts get a lot of benefits from this relationship,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Fashion label opens factory in Georgia

FEB. 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian fashion design company Materia has opened a new factory on the outskirts of Tbilisi that will hire 250 people to produce clothes for export to Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Russia, Italy, China, Armenia, Kuwait, and Ukraine. The factory was funded by a 1.2m euro loan given the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Georgian parliament rejects presidential amendments

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s parliament, dominated by the Dream Dream Coalition, voted overwhelmingly against amendments proposed by President Giorgi Margvelashvili to a bill which he said would impair the impartiality of judges. He had sent a bill drawn up by the Georgian Dream back for a second look. Georgian Dream have a so-called Constitutional Majority, controlling more than 3/4 of the seats in the 150-seat chamber.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Georgian company to export pipe to EU

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Off the back of a trade agreement signed with the European Union last year, Georgian company Rustavi Metallurgical Plant will start exporting seamless pipes to Italy, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, media reported. The deal gave Georgian companies access to the EU market. Earlier this year a Georgian wool company said it had started exporting to Britain.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)