Fair market competition, development of human resources and access to financial resources will be the three pillars on which the upcoming strategy of economic development of Georgia will stand. The final draft project for the strategy is scheduled to be worked out by this coming September and approved as a law in two-three months, after which all ministries and state structures will focus their action plans on the approved economic strategy – this is the key issue Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili agreed with the group of economic pundits on July 25, 2013.
To outline where Georgian economy is going to and send correct signals to both local and foreign investors a group of economic experts including both local and foreign think-tanks is working over the economic strategy of the country. The document is expected to be completed by fall and disclosed in September in the best case so as the legislative body might discuss the project and approve it during the autumn session. The group of economic pundits started working over the economic strategy of Georgia shortly after now primer Ivanishvili, the richest Georgian tycoon went into politics and founded an oppositionist political coalition Georgian Dream in February of 2012. The strategy was supposed to be worked out by Parliamentary elections in October of 2012 however it got protracted up to date. After completion of his meeting with the group of experts Ivanishvili acknowledged to media that the strategy paper is “a little bit belated” due to objective factors that members of the working groups have been engaged in many other issues in parallel. However the strategy will be through most probably by September and it will be “a formal document”. Ivanishvili promised to make frequent meetings with economic experts in future as far as “all problems of our country pass through economy and the key challenge is an economy to us,” however he did not disclose details of the draft strategic paper as yet. To find out more Georgian Journal contacted Demur Giorkhelidze, a head of economic team of Georgian Dream. According to Giorkhelidze, Premier discussed the final draft of economic strategy with the team of experts and the paper will be ready by fall and be approved as a law in 2-3 months after which all state structures, action plans and economic decisions will be based on the strategy as a guideline. The strategy will be based on three core issues such as to insure fair market competition, to develop human resources and make easier access to financial resources to private sector.
“The strategy will outline the action plan how to achieve these three challenges. I would accentuate that developing of human resources is a breakthrough as far as no due attention was paid on human capital development in Georgia so far. It means investing in education as much as possible starting from the pre-school level and going higher. As to the third goal we should develop capital market that is pretty below the par at the moment with banking monopoly and no other financing and investment tools. We aim to develop all the financial market tools adopted in the developed world,” Giorkhelidze said.