FROM THE EDITOR

Jemal Inaishvili

It is strange but I consider March as the beginning of the year, an active beginning to be more exact. It is also so in the legislative sphere and business.

On the one hand, because it is the first full working month after permanent holidays, and on the other one – the last 2005 year is summed up and the achieved results or future trends and problems become apparent. That is why the main topic of this issue is the economic results of 2005, inflation and consumer basket’s trends. We made it a subject of a serious analysis in the last issue since it worries us very much like the started debate on the Law on Harmlessness and Quality of Food Products and the problems of standardization. The latter is the ending of publications concerning this issue, and on April 18 at Metekhi Palace Hotel a conference on this subject will come to the end, at which concrete problems, positive trends and ways will be outlined. It is not the main point for us to resort to scholasticism and argue as to how it is more correct to pronounce the word “certification” in Georgian. Even linguists could not clarify it and it is not essential anyway (I, personally, prefer the variant that sounds more like in English). The main thing is creation of a new adjusted institution and the civilized principles, which will promote both protection of business and protection of consumers. Now we face a serious choice – whether to protect the market, make our economy more transparent and integrated for the world business, or without any calculations lift the barrier, the lifting of which is not required from us by any of our partner countries, and instead eradicate the little protective fence for our own production which any civilized country provides for promotion of its domestic production. In my opinion, the objective should be in the center of the general strategy, and all steps of the economic reform should be in cause-and-effect relation to this objective, well thought-out in the context and calculated. We believe that the issue of cancellation of the customs tax should be considered not only in the parliament, but the public at large and non-governmental organizations should be involved in this process, and a conference with participation of foreign experts should be devoted to it.
At the same time, the problems of domestic production will be widely considered in this issue; in particular, it concerns wheat, flour and chicken meat production.
The very important changes in the Tax Code and in the banking sector will not be left without attention. We believe that the increasing role of foreign capital both in assets and the capital of this sector is a positive phenomenon, though the effect of this processes on the whole Georgian business requires a serious analysis. This is a delicate sphere and an additional dispute on lifting of barriers in it would be necessary.
We traditionally present the review of the financial commodity market both inside of the country and abroad, since in March there were serious shifts on the food products market and in the financial sphere. In the consulting part for entrepreneurs we shall consider tax and accounting issues that are relevant today.