GEPRGIEN FIESTA (ABSTRACT)

Elene Gabelaia

“Investment in Georgian economy will be quite profitable” ? says Kakha Bendukidze, minister of Georgian economic development.

He advises Russian businessmen to invest money in Georgia as nowadays the most good and liberal tax system is developing in Georgia. This will create favourable business environment for both local and foreign businessmen. The minister has presented a last case to Russian businessmen in hotel Marriot. This is as follows: tax code, arbitration court, 100% amortization, low tax rates, financial amnesty, new budget project with its priorities in the sense of country’s security, deregulation and reforms in anti-monopoly, standard service and property management bodies. Tamaz Somkhishvili (“Rosneftexport”). Not yet large-scale but gradually developing business-unions will be established. Georgia has faced serious cataclysms and there is a feeling of risk among businessmen in this sense. Very often policy and corruption are like the sword of Damocles for businessmen. Perhaps, this is no surprise for Russia as there are the same problems there, yet all businessmen look for better environment. The potential is enormous, everything begins with such kind of relations in a very complex way, but still it begins. We know wine price well in Russia. I doubt that it is treated so carefully in California.
Minister of culture and education George Gabashvili made clear the “direction” of active inflow of Russian capital ? he advises Russian businessmen to take special interest in Georgian wine industry. He says that Georgian wine produced by Russians will be able to compete with foreign production. The minister of culture was a visitor to the wine festival that was held for the first time in Georgia.
Similar festivals bring many amounts to the budget of the countries and cities where such festivals are held. This kind of tourism is well spread and popular with vine tradition in a country famous for beer. In our case vine festival is a country’s advertisement, chance for economic reform direct investment. Besides, it is a good opportunity for making oneself known to the world through foreign media and it is a special business for creating legal international market of Georgian wine. Finally, it is a chance to create a tradition for forming this special tourism direction that is so well-known in Italy, France and Spain.
As a rule, Tbilisoba should serve the development of wine tourism. As a result of it, Georgian agriculture will have great consumers in the form of international tourism. Holding of such grandiose festivals as in Europe requires much time, but it is possible to do this step by step.
In Germany Beer festival is held twice in autumn. More than 3 million people visited the recent traditional beer event Oktoberfest in Munich. Listening to music and songs they drank 4 million liters of beer (one litter of beer costs 7 Euro), ate about 350 thousand roast chickens, 60 thousand gammons and 250 thousands sausages. This event has in average brought one billion Euro to the city budget.
Thieves also take care of their own pocket in a crowd of people exalted with the event. A group of thieves managed to attract attention of the public by means of a buxom girl who denuded her breast and when people looked at her in admiration, thieves managed to clear the pockets of visitors to the event.