From The Editor
Jemal Inaishvili
Signagi becomes the centre for tourism revival in Georgia. This time this really attractive place will host the second Georgian National Wine Competition – Georgia Cradle of Wine.
Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry will organize the event complying with all international standards. Signagi will be the competition venue. A lot has been done to popularize Georgian export, but I believe it is important to introduce western schemes in business marketing and especially in the field of wine. Interrelated agriculture, tourism and international business create a new style for developing the country’s economy and for employing people. We hope the competition will become an arena of business agreements. Georgian wine will soon gain international recognition and group of wine experts will grant international titles to our brands. Wine experts as well as an awarding ceremony will be quite impressive. I believe our readers look forward to see the winner brands and new products in this sector. A new Georgian wine company Badagoni triumph in Italy is the best example of it. The company passed a significant test there.
Some really important changes take place in international market. The US economy keeps signs of stability. Probably recession didn’t turn out to be as destroying as it had been supposed. Accordingly currency exchange rate forecasts as well as the world economy indicators are changing. You can find the world market and currency exchange rate forecast overview in the present edition. I suppose many of you will find answers to useful questions, particularly on currency exchange rates.
Georgia’s priority is the integration to European structures and to the EU. We have come back to certain points of so called Action Plan the part of which has been implemented quite successfully. However we face certain problems in some articles. What hampers our sustainable development in this respect and what do Europeans expect from us? Our journalists discusses this issue with the Georgian European Policy and Legal Advice Centre (GEPLAC) director Kakha Gogolashvili. This discussion will remind us that we need to observe Georgia’s interests and at the same time comply with the European integration requirements. We have to make a choice and it will not be an easy task (pg.9).
We go back to crisis and mortgage loan once again. We have analyzed this issue within the frameworks of students’ discussion club in order to discuss it within Georgia’s banking supervision and to make corresponding conclusions (pg.31). I believe the work done by a student provided in this edition is dedicated to Tbilisi State University 90th anniversary and it continues researching traditions of our great university.
European Integration Forum with the support of British Embassy in Georgia arranged a conference on ‘Correspondence of Georgian Banking System to European Challenges’ at Hotel Ambasadori on April 29. Within banking sector boom on the one hand and the world financial crisis on the other hand, the issue bears significant importance (pg.27).
Scientific work by Tbilisi State University professor Rezo Gvelesiani on ‘Policy for Economic Order – opposition between social and competitive orders’ is quite interesting. It is dedicated to the University anniversary and is an open research on growing social problems harmonization or opposition to competitive reality – where does the golden line between social optimization and real market competitiveness go?
We traditionally offer you scientific works on important issues of economics; however we tried not to overload your Easter holiday with economic problems and statistics.
Happy Easter!