From the editor

Jemal Imnaishvili

We hope that our exacting readers liked the new project that we started from our sixth issue. We have taken a decision that 50 percent of our magazine should be in English so that investors could have an opportunity to have all necessary information about Georgian economy and the issues that are of interest to them.

Thus our magazine will become an arena for discussions between businessmen, scientists and analysts. July was a rather important month not only because one of the world’s largest insurance companies “American Ishuan Company” entered the Georgian market, though is very important (because it provides a full package of insurance services, including insurance against political risks; is natural that after President Bush’s visit the largest companies received a signal and are preparing for carrying out investments in Georgia and they, first of all, need insurance against possible risks), and not because the International Monetary Fund has fully approved the reformatory policy of the Georgian government and allocated 20 million for strengthening of Georgian currency policy, but because the discussions still continued concerning the main directions of the reform and first of all concerning a considerable sector of the export potential – wine export. Serious joint steps were taken by the Chamber of Commerce, the parliament and the government together with the entrepreneurs involved in this business. From this point of view the exhibition and business conference held in Baku were important, and the Prime Minister, the Minister of Ecomomy, the Minister of Energy and Georgian business elite, first of all wine-makers, were present there. Azerbaijan, which possesses 0.8% of the world’s oil reserves, seriously considers development of other sectors of its economy (agricultural produce processing industry, production of cement and construction materials, etc.), since in about twenty years the oil reserves there will be exhausted. It is interested that the two countries should be linked not only by the oil pipeline but also have a wide range of common business interests.
The opponents will probably reproach us in our attaching special attention to wine-making; it is not just wine-making, but our country’s advertisement, and we would like “Made in Georgia” to become a quality trade mark. We will start with one sector of the economy, and the others may follow. That is why in this issue we, along with wine-making issues, have considered the issues of the construction sector as well, since over the recent years we have been ‘tilting at windmill’ and house-building have been almost stopped in Tbilisi, where a full-fledged urbanization concept haven’t been fully created. Because of the above-mentioned reasons the country loses workplaces, the budget – money, and the customers – cheap flats. Since all this is the main reason for sharp price increase for flats the law on “the principles of space arrangement and city constructions” was passed. But the principal thing is the mechanism of its implementation and it should become the subject of wide discussion.
In this issue we present you the continuation of one of old discussions on the subject “whether Georgia needs free economic areas in Poti and Senaki”. This is a painful subject and there are a lot of different opinions concerning it, so we found it expedient to start this discussion anew.
We have returned to the subject of tourism again since, according to export estimations, there expected a 40% growth in this sector but we did not turn out to be ready for it both from the view point of infrastructure and organizational problems. So we present you information on these issues.
According to our tradition, we present you a July business calendar, accounting and tax bulletin’s statistical data, as well as information on Georgian economy in figures and the review of the world economy.
Jemal Inaishvili