Economic Conference Concludes with Focus on Georgia's Prospects

On January 29-30, Tbilisi hosted a two-day Economic Conference ‘Georgia and the World 2019,’ at Tech Park (TechnoPark), under the aegis of the World 2019 annual edition of The Economist.

The conference aimed to examine Georgia’s progress in numerous fields and the current position of the country’s economy, consider the future challenges the country may face on the pathway of development, and discuss existing opportunities in the working environs. The event brought together more than 100 delegates, including the representatives of the Government of Georgia, international organizations, the diplomatic corps, the business sector and academic circles.

The agenda of the conference comprised a number of panels, with speakers and guests of honor discussing, among other themes: Georgia’s potential towards integration into the global economy; Innovative reforms in the financial sector; Georgia’s tourism potential: new markets and tourism; and product diversification.

The second day of the Economic Conference was equally as important and interesting. Various themes were covered during the panel discussions, among them Georgia as an agricultural country, Georgia’s tourism potential, and the country’s capabilities of becoming an entrepreneurial country.

Giorgi Kobulia, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, participated in one of the panels and spoke about the prospects of the country in terms of the development of entrepreneurship, presenting the program of the country’s economic growth which involves achieving three main goals: the creation of work places and decreasing the level of countrywide unemployment; the amelioration of trading potential of the country; attracting innovation-based investments.

Kobulia also focused on the challenges faced by the country in terms of economic expansion and examined ways of overcoming them. “As a government, we aim to first overcome the obstacles in our priority sectors, which were outlined as a result of investigation of the Georgian economy: power engineering, logistics and transportation systems, agriculture and nutrition industry, enterprises, natural resource management and innovations and technologies,” he said.

The Minister further focused on the fields with the highest prospects in the sector of entrepreneurship and named the production of clothing, leather goods, furniture, means of transportation, and assembly of electric devices as the major priorities for the government. He also mentioned agriculture and noted the possibility of credit financing for particular entrepreneurs satisfying given criteria.

By Ketevan Kvaratskheliya

Image source: agenda.ge