Chinese Investment Tests Limits of Georgian Hospitality
04 April, 2013
Eurasianet.org publishes an article about Chinese investment in Georgia and building of real estate in Tbilisi suburb.
“A $150-million-plus Chinese real estate and tourism deal that is slated for a suburb of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, is creating a quandary for many Georgians. The project is feeding a long-standing desire for foreign investment, but it is also stoking wariness about foreign influence.
Set against a broad backdrop of crumbling, Soviet-era apartment blocks, the project -- run by the Hualing Group, a privately owned, Xinjiang, China,-based company with banking, timber, and hotel investments in Georgia – is projected to remake about 420 hectares of land in the working-class district of Vazisubani.
In the first, $150-million phase, housing will be built on four hectares for the European Youth Olympic Festival, an event of young athletes from 48 European countries that Tbilisi will host in 2015. A subsequent step is expected to include a retail and residential area, to be built at an unknown cost.
Last year, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s government praised the Hualing Group for bringing in much-needed investment and employment to a poor, densely populated part of Tbilisi. The level of investment for the first phase amounts to more than five times the size of total Chinese foreign investment in Georgia in 2012.
At the same time, rumors that the project will bring 127,000 Chinese immigrants into the city to work and live are generating local concern – increasingly prevalent since the 2008 war with Russia -- about foreigners pushing Georgians off their own land and depriving them of hard-to-find jobs. “Nothing will be left for us [if so many Chinese come],” complained Gulara, a 62 year-old female pensioner who lives near the planned development site. “Where did all these ethnic groups come from? […] God gave us this land.”
In recent years, Tbilisi has experienced an influx of immigrants from Africa and South Asia, as well as occasional Chinese traders, and Arab investors. But in a country of 4.49 million people with estimated rates of unemployment over 50 percent, these visitors are sometimes seen more as an economic threat than as a source of opportunity.
“People are not aware of how to deal with, how to cohabitate … with others,” said Nana Berekashvili, the head of the Department on Minorities and Gender at Tbilisi’s International Center on Conflict and Negotiation. “In [the] case of [the] Chinese, I think it is … [people] having the notion about China that it is huge and enormously populated, and their idea is somehow to expand.”
Representatives of the Hualing Group denied that there are plans for a massive resettlement of Chinese to Tbilisi. The residential buildings that will begin construction once the Olympic Village is finished will be sold on the open market, and are not sufficient to house 127,000 people, commented the company’s Georgia spokesperson, Tina Shishinashvili.
She emphasized that 531 of the project’s 659 workers are Georgian citizens. Hualing has also taken on Georgian architects to design its overall strategic plan, she said.
But such assurances mean little to figures such as Jondi Bagaturia, the outspoken head of the right-wing Kartuli Dasi (Georgian Troupe) political party. The party has played a prominent role in stoking popular discontent over the project with claims of a pending Chinese resettlement.
Bagaturia says he bases his opposition on what he purports to be a copy of the contract between the Georgian government and the Hualing Group. Although the investment itself is “very good,” he said any influx of Chinese immigrants is “unacceptable” since the government “must protect the labor market.”
Neither the Economic Development Ministry nor Tbilisi City Hall responded to requests for comment about the planned investment. The project’s architectural plan is still awaiting municipal approval.
Hualing Group’s interest in Georgia is not unusual. Chinese companies in the past have been involved in large-scale investments ranging from the construction of a hydropower plant to a railway tunnel. With a trade turnover of $591.5 million, China in 2012 ranked as Georgia’s fourth largest trading partner.
Yet Georgians’ attitudes toward the Chinese -- and immigrants in general -- remain complex. A 2010 survey by the Caucasus Research Resource Center in Tbilisi found that while 57 percent of 2,089 Georgian respondents supported doing business with the Chinese, 80 percent were against the closer tie of marriage.
While Georgian culture stipulates hospitality and respect toward guests, Berekashvili commented, Georgians are selective about which ethnic groups are welcomed. They “are very hospitable toward people from Western cultures, from Europe, from the United States, but very little to others,” she said.
For Yu Hua, a Chinese businessman, Georgia is still a land of opportunity. After 14 years in the country, Yu serves as the president of the newly formed Chinese Chamber of Commerce and is married to a Georgian.
He says that he has never experienced racism or discrimination, but underlines that the government and media need “to offer… correct information” to dispel rumors that could spoil Chinese-Georgian business ties.
Right now, opinions are decidedly mixed.
As a small crew cleared mounds of earth from the European Youth Olympic Village site one day last month, a group of male onlookers dismissed the Chinese project with shrugs and a curse. But one 65-year-old woman selling sunflower seeds near the site remained optimistic.
“Let’s see what happens,” she said. “I don’t think it will be bad,” the article published by Eurasianet.org reads.

Related Stories:

Chinese settlement on Tbilisi Sea – Jondi Bagaturia published video of future Chinese villages in Georgia


“Harbour of Happiness” - controversy about China Town construction near Tbilisi

Chinese settlement in Tbilisi will have Special Economic Zone status

Chinese are building a China Town in Kutaisi

Other Stories
BTK Railway Steps Up

Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, projected to be the shortest route between Europe and China will be constructed at more rapid rate than before and it will be completed without impediments. Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, sent this message at Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkey business forum held in Gabala, Azerbaijan on May 25, 2013.

Tbilisi Ecology Lacks Competence and Policy
The ecological condition of Georgian capital Tbilisi is alarming as the municipality lacks due competence and bases its activity on none-existing strategy for years.
Conservative Banking Policy Hinders Georgian Economy
Conservative banking policy hinders Georgian economy. According to the influential Standard & Poor’s international rating agency, aside from the political uncertainty, reducing the economic growth-rate in Georgia, is associated with the conservative policy of commercial banks.
What’s Amiss With Cheaper Agro-Credits?
Very few of reprocessing industry enterprises have availed of preferential agribusiness credits disbursed in frames of the Preferential Agro-Credit Project of the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia (MOA) within a month of its launch on March 27, 2013. Economic analysts think the reason is the credit program is more tailored to banks’ interests rather than to the agriculture reprocessing industry that should play the first fiddle in agriculture sector revival and development.
AGREEMENT REACHED ON EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT
An agreement is reached between Georgian authorities and businessmen in the field of employment contract terms of the draft labor code put under parliamentary procedures at the moment and scheduled to be approved by the end of the spring session.
Eco-Migrants Left Homeless
Hundreds of eco-migrants from Georgia’s Ajara Autonomous Republic, who resettled in the south-east Georgia 13 years ago, are left homeless and neglected by the state.
Georgia Eyes Regional Electricity Market
Georgian government works hard to blueprint the EU electricity trade pattern in Georgia in order to get access to the regional market that will boost investments in Georgian hydro-power sector and also make Georgia’s electricity system safer.
State Money Unreasonably Spent on Two Airports?
Georgian authorities find unreasonable the construction of Kopitnari and Mestia airports with the state investment funds. However, some Georgian experts believe that infrastructure development falls in the state responsibility whatsoever.
Water Tolls Increased for Borjomi and Nabeghlavi
Tolls on the use of natural resources increased on extraction of only two mineral waters - Borjomi and Nabeghlavi for they are big fishes.
Paving Way to Georgian Post’s Monopoly
The last order of Ministry of Finances of Georgia paves way to establish Georgian Post as the monopolist at a carrier market.
Gambling Commercials Face No Ban
The bill prohibiting commercials advertizing gambling business failed during the second parliamentary hearing. Parliament is supposed to work on the regulation of gambling business instead.
Russian Gas -Theoretical Option
In quest of diversified gas supply, Georgian government discusses Russian gas as an alternative if it is reasonably priced. Sector pundits consider this option rather a theoretical one for it can scarcely compete with the double cheaper Azeri gas.
Georgian Economy Becomes Tardy
Economic slow-down in the first quarter of 2013 bespeaks that deflation process is aggravated and the Central Bank as well as Georgian administration are responsible for that.
Bill of Cooperatives Falls below Par
A draft law on agricultural cooperatives, initiated by the Agriculture Committee of Georgian Parliament, reminds more a charter than a law because it falls out of the best world practice.
‘MONOPOLIES CONTROLLED BY MONOPOLIES?!
Agency that will control the whole economy

Last week it was finally specified that the companies that, as compared with their rivals, enjoy preferences or make cartel agreement with one another, will be revealed not by opposed-to-them antimonopoly service, but by a competition agency.
Also on the Web
International Children’s Day celebration in Palitra Media
Palitra Media Holding hosted a group of children for the June 1 International Children’s Day celebration, with a number of entertaining events for sons and daughters of the organization’s employees
Bidzina Ivanishvili was awarded a Milan shirt with his surname on it
Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili held a meeting in Tbilisi on June 1 with AC Milan Vice-President Adriano Galliani, who had travelled for the May 31 farewell match of former AC Milan player and currently Georgia's Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze.
Woman who painted a picture with her body for President Saakashvili
The Georgian public learned about American actor-turned-artist Meredith Ostrom following the discovery of an unusual note in the recent controversial case of waste of state funds by President Saakashvili.
“I wish him to have the same success in politics” – Ivanishvili at Kaladze’s farewell game
Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili addressed the supporters gathered at Dinamo Arena for Kakha Kaladze’s farewell match on May 31.
Kaladze tells a secret in his farewell match speech
Former AC Milan and Georgian national team player Kakha Kaladze thanked Georgian and foreign players
Naked man on the pitch at Kaladze’s farewell match
A naked man ran out on the Dinamo Arena pitch during the May 31 Kakha Kaladze farewell match in Tbilisi.
Kakha Kaladze’s son kicked off the ball to start his father’s last match
Kakha Kaladze's son Levaniko kicked off the ball for the start of the May 31 farewell match of his father, the former AC Milan and Georgian national team player.
“Jesus Christ was the organizer” – Accused Father Antimoz about the LGBT protest events in Tbilisi
Preliminary court hearing for the two church representatives arrested in relation to the May 17 incidents on the Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi will be held on June 15 in Tbilisi City Court.
World football stars in Tbilisi for Kaladze's farewell match
International players for the May 31 Kakha Kaladze farewell match traveled to Tbilisi on the match day, arriving at Tbilisi International Airport and having been accommodated at Radisson Blue Iveria hotel.
Members of National Movement in Picasso Club
Owner of the Picasso Club in Kutaisi and supporter of the National Movement Pikaso Kajaia released a YouTube video
«« June 2013 »»
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
GEL Exchange
GBP
1
GBP
2.5071
RUB
100
RUB
5.1878
TRY
1
TRY
0.8744
EUR
1
EUR
2.1432
USD
1
USD
1.6496