Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgian Central Bank challenges budget plans

TBILISI, JULY 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank scorned as inadequate the government’s plan to cut spending in the face of a region-wide economic downturn.

The statement will increase tension between the Central Bank and the Georgian Dream Coalition government which have become embroiled in a row about oversight of commercial banks.

Central Bank chief Giorgi Kadagidze, who was appointed by the former government of President Mikheil Saakaashvili, and his allies have said the government’s criticism of him is politically motivated.

“Expenditures should be cut mostly at the expense of current spending,” the Central Bank said in a statement. “If the goal of the Parliament is to ease the loan burden caused by lari depreciation or to offset further downward pressure on lari, appropriate changes should be made in the [budget], which are not envisaged by the proposed draft of the budgetary amendments.” This is rare criticism.

Last month MPs voted to cut spending across different ministries. The lari has lost just over a quarter of its value since November 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Inflation rises in Georgia, again

JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Year-on-year inflation in Georgian in May hit 4.5%, up from 3.5% a month previously, the official statistics said. This was the highest rate of inflation since September 2014 and confirmed an upward trend in 2015 driven mainly by alcohol, food and cigarettes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Georgia’s military starts exercises with NATO

JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s military started a two-week military exercise with NATO countries, including the US, at an airbase near Tbilisi. Much to the annoyance of Russia, Georgia is intent on joining NATO.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)

Georgian GDP rises

JUNE 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Geostat, the Georgian statistics agency, reported an increase in year-on-year GDP growth to an estimated 2.1% in May, up from 0.9% in April. The economic data will be welcome news for the Georgian government which has been under pressure because of a downturn in the economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

Georgia PM says no to gay marriages

JUNE 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — In the wake of the decision by the US Supreme Court last week to legalise same sex marriages, Georgian PM Iralkli Garbashvili promised a constitutional ban on homosexual marriages in Georgia.

His decision plays well to Georgia’s conservative society and highlights the divide between the country and the far more liberal West, whose groups Georgia aspires to join.

“As a prime minister and a citizen, I will do everything to include a clause in the constitution that defines marriage and the family as the union of a man and a woman,” Mr Garibashvili said in an interview with a conservative newspaper Asaval-Dasavali.

It is not the first time he has suggested changing the constitution to include the definition of marriage. Last time was in 2014, when parliament discussed an anti-discrimination bill required by the EU for further integration. The Georgian Orthodox Church heavily criticised the bill in 2014 as it forbade discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

According to the Caucasus Research Resource Centre opinion polls, the majority of Georgians support EU and NATO membership, and the US is seen as Georgia’s main ally but 88% of Georgians also said that homosexuality can never be justified.

These views are easy to find on the streets of Tbilisi.

“Sure, the US is a friend to our politicians. But gay marriages just don’t look pretty, do they? Here, in Georgia, we don’t like such kind of people,” said Giorgi, a hairdresser.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

Georgia raises interest rates

JULY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Central Bank raised its interest rate to 5.5%, its highest since Nov. 2012, to combat accelerating inflation. Georgia’s Lari currency has fallen sharply in value over the past few months, mainly because of the downturn in Russia’s economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

Football fever grips Georgian capital and tests infrastructure

TBILISI/Georgia, JULY 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Football dominates conversation on the streets of Tbilisi. Its 51,000-seat Dinamo stadium will host the 40th UEFA Super Cup between Champions League winner Barcelona and Europa League winner Sevilla on August 11.

Tbilisi won the bid to host the Super Cup in the last few months of Mikheil Saakashvili’s government in 2012, the culmination of 1-1/2 years of negotiations.

“It’s a huge event for us,” said Boris Kiknadze, one of several thousand football fans in Tbilisi who are hoping to buy tickets for the big match. “Our teams are not great, so we never have big stars coming here. I am really excited to see Barcelona, if I manage to get a ticket.”

But that’s just the problem. Getting hold of a ticket has proved difficult, if not impossible. “It is a horrible mess here,” said Kiknadze. Biletebi.ge, an online ticket retailer, was selected as the main distributor of the game tickets. Used to selling tickets to jazz concerts and the theatre, rather than large sports events, it crashed seconds after thousands of fans tried to buy a ticket on June 22.

It restarted on June 30, introduced a virtual queue and allowed people 15 minutes on the website before timing out and four tickets per person. An estimated 140,000 people queued online for tickets. About 2,000 tickets were sold before the site crashed again.

Biletebi.ge said it experienced technical difficulties, and resumed sales on July 1 of the 4,300 tickets earmarked for people living outside Georgia. The remaining 22,000 tickets, reserved for Georgians, will be sold later this month at booths outside the stadium.

Tbilisi-based sports journalist Alastair Watt described what the match meant to Georgians.

“This is probably the biggest club match to take place in Georgia since independence (from the Soviet Union in 1991),” he said. “For the tens of thousands of Georgians who follow Barcelona, this is likely to be their only chance to see their team on Georgian soil.”

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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

Turkmen president travels to Tbilisi to talk energy policies

JULY 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov travelled to Tbilisi for the first time in his eight-year presidency, part of a high-profile charm offensive aimed at winning support for pumping Turkmen gas to Europe across the South Caucasus.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili welcomed Mr Berdymukhamedov at the Presidential Palace overlooking Tbilisi with red carpet and a guard of honour.

“Energy is one of the issues on which we cooperate closely. A Transit route from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey has a huge potential,” Georgian media quoted Mr Berdymukhamedov as saying after the meeting. said.

Mr Margvelashvili agreed.

“Our joint transit and energy projects will make it possible to transit Turkmen energy resources to the European markets,” he said.

This year momentum has built for Turkmenistan to start sending its gas to Europe across the south Caucasus. The European Union has visited Ashgabat several times to secure promises of gas supplies from Turkmenistan and Turkmen officials have set up working groups with their Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish counterparts on how best to pump gas to Europe.

Europe wants to reduce its dependence on Russia for energy supplies and Turkmenistan wants to widen its client base. Currently most of its gas flows east to China.

By travelling to Tbilisi for the first time since he became Turkmen president in 2007, Mr Berdymukhamedov has sent out a strong signal of his intent.

Luca Anceschi, a professor of Central Asian Studies at Glasgow University explained.

“This meeting, marking Berdymukhamedov’s first official visit to Georgia, is an important display of Turkmenistan’s policy of maintaining an open dialogue with as many potential partners as possible,” he said.

And Georgia is important because it lies on the pipeline transit route from Azerbaijan to Turkey and then into Europe. Mr Berdymukhamedov, as he clearly has acknowledged, needs Georgian support to push gas through to Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

Greek econ woes hit Georgia

JULY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Remittances from Greece to Georgia have dropped by nearly a fifth this year because Greek financial meltdown, deputy finance minister Giorgi Kakauridze said.

And Greece is a vital of income for Georgia. Russia, Greece is Georgia’s most important source of remittances.

“The situation in Greece will of course affect money transfers to Georgia, but remittances are already significantly reduced not only from Greece, but from other sources as well, so it will not have a significant effect on the Georgian economy anymore,” Mr Kakauridze told the Rustavi-2 television station.

Georgia, Russia and Greece are all predominantly Christian Orthodox countries.

Overall remittance flows to Georgia have fallen by 23% to $438m in the first five months of this year. Remittances from Greece were down 18% to $69m. From Russia, remittances had fallen by 42% to $163m.

Greece has defaulted on an IMF loan repayment and it is holding a referendum on Sunday to decide whether to accept tighten bailout rules. It’s banks have placed currency controls on withdrawals.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)

China buys Georgian econ building

JUNE 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hualing Group, a Chinese investment company, bought a building in central Tbilisi previously used as the ministry of economy for $9.5m. Hualing Group is committed to turning the building into a 100-room hotel by 2018.

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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)