PM Candidate Pledges Support for Startups, the Green Economy & Angel Investors
Mamuka Bakhtadze, candidate for the next Prime Minister from the ruling Georgian Dream party, chose to hold his first meeting in his new role with young representatives of Georgian tech start-ups, at Technopark Tbilisi, a public-private project supporting the development of a new economy.
During an almost two-hour meeting, where Bakhtadze made a presentation and fielded questions from the audience, he exposed his vision of the country’s development steeped in the government supporting a high-tech economy, entrepreneurship and competition.
Specifically underlining his intention to support FinTech startups and boost Georgia’s competitive advantage in the financial services sector, he pledged to curb unfair competition to private IT start-ups from governmental agencies’ IT departments. At the same time, he promised financial incentives for Georgian tech start-ups, and spoke of the need to attract talent also from the neighboring countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were mentioned).
Responding to a question from his audience, Bakhtadze said the government will present proposals for attracting angel investors from abroad, as well as encouraging high-technology companies to open their representations in Georgia by easing or completely abolishing their corporate tax.
Aside from these, he also pledged concrete initiatives to support the green economy and highlighted education as being the focal point for the new government’s investment.
Bakhtadze, perhaps attuned to the needs of the audience, refrained from touching upon other, wider, issues of poverty, social support or security.
Georgia has a tradition of technocratic Prime Ministers primarily responsible for the country’s economic stability and growth. But Georgia’s new Constitution, which would fully enter into force this coming autumn, foresees a much wider executive role for the Prime Minister as the full-fledged Head of Government.
Georgia’s Finance Minister since November 2017, Bakhtadze, a political novice, was tapped to be the country’s new head of government after PM Kvirikashvili stepped down amid public protests as well as apparent “differences of opinion” with the ruling party leadership.
By Shawn Wayne