Economy Minister Natia Turnava has presented a 10-year economic development strategy, which covers 12 major areas, ranging from small business empowerment and investment attraction to specific development policies and quantitative indicators in each key area that the country should achieve until 2025 and 2030.
“Our main task in the near and medium-term will be to maintain a steadily high rate of economic growth, as well as a stable macroeconomic environment and the foresight of the environment for our business, which is very important”, Turnava said.
Turnava projected that Georgian economic growth rate would reach 8% this year taking into account “unprecedented” growth in April and in May.
“This means that we will completely reverse last year’s drop of -6.2% and move on to absolute growth. Then in 2025 and in 2030 we will continue to maintain average economic growth of 5-5.2%, which will strengthen our status as a regional leader in terms of economic growth”, Turnava said.
Turnava added that the main task of the government was to reduce the poverty rate to 15% in 2025 and less than 10% in 2030.
In order to maintain a high rate of economic growth it is important to increase domestic production and exports.
“In the next five years we will double the exports and increase self-sufficiency by at least 20%”, said Turnava.
To achieve this goal, the Ministry of Economy is launching a number of new programs as part of the “Produce in Georgia” state program.
As part of this new program 50 fields of the Georgian economy are identified to have the potential of export growth and import replacement on the local market.
These 50 fields are united under the following areas: manufacture of pharmaceutical products, chemical production, manufacture of some building materials, production of primary products of metal, plastic, rubber and glass, textile industry and footwear manufacturing, manufacture of electrical installations and components, production of animal feed and feed mantles, manufacture of auto parts and other vehicles (e.g. bicycles) or parts thereof, manufacture of medical instruments, furniture production, marine fishing and software production.
These fields will receive the following support per the program: loan co-financing – refinancing rate minus 5%; loan guarantee – 60% of the loan amount; grant – 15% of the loan (not more than 500,000 GEL); duration – full term of the loan and loan amount – 50,000 – 10 million GEL.
The goal of the Business Universal program is to increase the financial availability of business loans for the maximum number of business entities.
The terms of the program are: loan co-financing – refinancing rate minus 5%; loan guarantee – 60% of the loan amount; duration – full term of the loan; number of allowed economic activities – up to 360 and loan amount – 50,000 – 10 million GEL.
The program covers all areas except for the mining industry, energy, trade, agriculture, financial and real estate activities, utility services and construction.
Development of Agro and Eco Tourism is an intensive support program for the development of agro and eco tourism facilities in the regions.
The program will finance local and international info-tours, staff training and will provide funding for the participation in tourism exhibitions.
The terms of the program are: loan co-financing – refinancing rate minus 5%; loan guarantee – 60% of the loan amount and grant – 15% of the loan (not more than 500,000 GEL).
Turnava said that once all the programs were launched and the implementation of the 10-year strategy started the first results would be noticeable in about two or three years.
In about three years there will be: 1,350 financed small and medium-sized businesses, 2.51 billion GEL of private investments, 100,000 employed people, access to the 1.60-billion GEL loan and 366 million GEL in the budget of the project. (Agenda/Business World Magazine)
