DEC. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Belarus officially opened its first embassy in Tbilisi, promising to improve ties between the two former Soviet states. Belarus has been increasingly active in bilateral diplomacy with the South Caucasus over the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s economy was 2.3% larger in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the third quarter of 2015, highlighting economic growth in Georgia despite difficult conditions. Geostat also said that Georgia’s economy had grown by 2.7% in Q1 2016 and 3% in Q2 2016. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have seen their economies fall in value.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD issued a €5m ($5.2m) loan to Aversi Pharma, a top-5 healthcare provider in Georgia, for the creation of a new cancer treatment centre in Tbilisi and a clinic in Telavi, in the east of the country. Last year, the EBRD loaned $10.9m to Aversi Pharma to refurbish its hospital in Marneuli, in the south of the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f
DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian Dream coalition government in Georgia stands on the brink of a great victory. It may have been former President Mikheil Saakashvili who set the ball rolling for more integration with the EU for Georgia but he has been vanquished by the Georgian Dream. To the victor the spoils.
Now — once the mechanism to kick out any countries whose citizens abuse the system has been approved, and this EU sources say is a mere formality — Georgians holding biometric passports will be able to enter the 26-country Schengen area for up to 90 days.
By early next year Georgians will be able to avoid the tiring, often boring and sometimes humiliating visa process. Instead they’ll be able to confidently stroll up to immigration queues handover their passport, flash a smile and then skip over into the EU.
And good for them.
This hasn’t been an easy or even straight forward process. There have been plenty of times when the EU could have pulled the process. Instead both the EU and Georgia have stuck to the script. Just. The big wobble was created by the Syria refugee crisis. Suddenly, once the impact of hundreds of thousands of hungry and impoverished refugees had been absorbed by Europe, and Germany in particular, the EU was less keen to allow visa-free access to Georgia, and also to Ukraine as it happens.
Of course though, the perceived threat of Georgian people flows was overblown. There are only 4m people in Georgia and they are not all involved in organised crime, as the German government seemed to imply at one point. The vast majority also don’t want to migrate to Europe. They just want to be treated as equals.
Perhaps, though, geopolitical forces also propelled the process along again. With Russia seemingly dominant in eastern Ukraine and in the Middle East, the EU may have wanted to remind the Kremlin that soft power and the slow pull of European values can be influential. By agreeing to grant Georgia, and Ukraine, visa-free access to the Schengen area, the EU is making itself relevant.
Make no mistake, Georgia’s westward European trajectory is as geopolitically charged as it ever was.
By Giulia Bernardi, The Conway Bulletin’s Tbilisi correspondent
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign direct investment in Georgia, vital for its economy, was 5% higher in the first nine months of 2016 compared to 2015, the country’s statistics agency said. Total investment for Jan — Oct 2016 was $1.3b. The transport and communications sector attracted the most investment.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank slowed its interest rate cuts by keeping its key rate steady at 6.5% at its latest rate fixing meeting. It said that an increase in excise taxes and external factors would help lift prices temporarily although, there- after, price pressure will return. Inflation in Georgia stands at 0.2%, far below the Central Bank’s 5% target. It has cut its key interest rate from 8% at the start of the year.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s government unveiled a budget for 2017 that increased taxes on cigarettes, cars, alcohol and oil products to offset a planned drop in corporate tax and a rise in social spending. The increase in spending is designed to propel Georgia through a deep economic downturn. The ministry of labour, health and social affairs, by far the most heavily financed government ministry, will get a boost of around 6% and the budget for the ministry of infrastructure and regional development jumps by a third.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Vienna on Dec. 13, Gazprom chiefs told Georgia that a long-standing deal by which it could take a 10% chunk of gas that Russia exports to Armenia via Georgian territory should be scrapped, Georgian energy minister Kakha Kaladze told media. The two sides held similar negotiations last year. Russia wants the gas deals to move onto a monetised basis, Georgia wants to swap deal to remain. Last year a swap deal was retained.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
TBILISI, DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia Global Utilities (GGU), a subsidiary of London-listed BGEO Group, issued a 30m lari ($12m) bond, giving investors the chance to take a punt on the lari.
The bond, destined to GGU’s subsidiary Georgian Water and Power, offers a 3.5% premium over the Central Bank’s lari refinancing rate and will mature in five years.
The lari has slid by 15% in the past three months against the US dollar and is now trading at 2.66/$1. This prompted the Central Bank to stop easing its monetary policy and to keep interest rates stable at 6.5%.
Despite the fall in the value of the lari, BGEO was bullish about the issue. “This is in line with GGU’s funding strategy to continue to raise new funding in local currency, with longer-term maturity,” Irakli Gilauri, BGEO’s CEO, said in a statement.
Georgian Water and Power, which supplies water to Tbilisi, Mtskheta and Rustavi, was privatised in 2008. The sale was criticised because of a perceived lack of transparency over GGU’s British Virgin Islands registration.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Georgia’s governmental budget presented to and passed by parliament, officials said that they targeted GDP growth of 4% next year. Despite the tough economic conditions, Georgia has managed to engineer some positive economic growth in 2016, unlike its neighbours, Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have been hard hit by the drop in oil prices and a recession in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f