Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgian election splits coalition

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Republican Party, which is part of the government coalition with the ruling Georgian Dream party, said it will run independently at parliamentary elections scheduled for October. PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said this does not mean that Republican Party deputies will now have to withdraw support for the coalition or that its ministers will have to leave the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

New Astoria opens in Georgia

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Astoria, a private Georgian company, opened its second hotel in the centre of Tbilisi, highlighting a boom in tourism. The company, owned by businessmen Malkhaz Manvelishvili and Amiran Gozalishvili, has spent 32m lari ($14m) on building the hotels. Tbilisi has been short of hotel rooms.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Editorial: Georgia’s dollarised economy

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Over-reliance on US dollars as a benchmark for prices of luxury items and, most importantly, as a currency in which savings are held, is a common affliction for the economies of South Caucasus and Central Asia.

This week Georgia’s Statistics Committee said US dollar-denominated deposits make up more than two-thirds of the total held at commercial banks. This is the highest level in the past five years.

Central bankers in other countries, however, boasted the public’s growing confidence in their local currencies but this is, frankly, coming from a very low base. And who really has much confidence in a currency such as the tenge right now? It lost around half its value last year. As did the Azerbaijani manat.

The vulnerability of these currencies and the inability of the Central Banks to protect their values show just why ordinary people turn to the trusty Greenback for their savings.

Despite whimpering from Central Bankers that confidence is returning in their currencies, the US dollar will remain the currency of choice.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Dollarisation grows in Georgia

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian Central Bank said the dollarisation of Georgia’s economy continued to rise in February, as US dollar deposits grew to 68.4% of the total, the highest level since October 2010. A high dollarisation of deposits suggests that bank customers’ trust in the local currency in waning.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Remittances to Georgia fall, again

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Remittances to Georgia fell again in February to $79.9m, a 2.6% decline on the year. Notably, money transfers from Russia and Greece continued to decline sharply while remittances from Italy, the US and Israel showed positive growth. As transfers from Greece have dramatically declined to around $8.5- $9.5m/month, Italy now ranks second behind Russia in the ranking of countries sending money to Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Netherlands extradites ex-Georgian spy

MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Giorgi Dgebuadze, a former high- ranking Georgian intelligence agent, was extradited to Georgia from the Netherlands. Mr Dgebuadze, who had served in the Constitutional Security Council, is wanted for charges related to the murder of three people in 2006. Dgebuadze had fled Georgia after the 2012 elections, triggering an Interpol manhunt. The Dutch police arrested Dgebuadze in 2014. The EU and the US have warned Georgia not to politicise its prosecution service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Smuggling ring busts targeting Georgian oil

MARCH 23 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian authorities broke up an oil smuggling operation near the village of Ruisi in central Georgia, highlighting the lack of security for infrastructures across the South Caucasus.

Smugglers were siphoning off crude oil from the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, a BP-operated 800km-long pipeline that transports oil from Azerbaijan to the Georgian Black Sea terminal of Supsa.

Smugglers had installed a parallel pipeline that branched off the main trunk and fed trucks.

Major infrastructure projects in the South Caucasus often appear fragile and vulnerable. In November, a fire at a data centre shut down the internet in Azerbaijan.

In 2011, an elderly woman damaged a major fibre- optic cable while digging for copper in a rural Georgian village, cutting internet access in Armenia.

Last year, too, rebels from the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has proclaimed independence, grabbed control of a section of the Baku-Supsa pipeline.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Short-circuit triggers Tbilisi cathedral fire

MARCH 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A short-circuit appears to have triggered a large fire at the Sameba cathedral in Georgia’s capital. The fire spread across 1,200 square metres and it took several hours for the Tbilisi fire department to extinguish it. The Sameba cathedral is the world’s third-tallest Eastern Orthodox church. No-one was reported as injured.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Georgia breakaway region to open ’embassy’ in Italy

MARCH 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The lobby group Italy-South Ossetia Friendship Society said it will open what it described an embassy for the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia in Rome in early April. After the Russian news agency Sputnik broke the news, the Georgian ministry of interior launched an investigation. Only a handful of countries, including Russia, have recognised South Ossetia as independent, after a brief war was fought in 2008. Italy has not recognised South Ossetia as an independent state.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Turkish developer opens new hotel in Georgian capital

MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish real estate developer Mehmet Surkit opened a new luxury boutique hotel in central Tbilisi. In a statement, Mr Surkit said the hotel had cost 12m lari ($5.3m). Hotel groups have been expanding rapidly in Tbilisi. The city is also promoting itself as a tourist and business destination.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)