Saakashvili Tells Ministers to Move to ‘New Stage of Economic Program’

President Saakashvili said that with “macroeconomic parameters improving”, the government should now move “to the next stage of economic program”.

He told PM Nika Gilauri, Finance Minster Kakha Baindurashvili and Economy Minister Zurab Pololikashvili at a meeting on September 18, that the government should develop and submit to the Parliament a package envisaging “firmer guarantees for the private property, firmer guarantees for investments to create more opportunities for our society so that they improve their economic condition.”

Finance Minister Baindurashvili told the President that “collection of taxes has improved and actually the crisis has moved into a waning mode from June and the economy became stable.”

“But we still have a long way ahead before reaching the growth rates, which we had in recent years; attraction of foreign investments is crucial for that,” he added.

Foreign direct investments were down by 80.2% to USD 226.1 million in the first half of 2009, against USD 1.143 billion in the same period of 2008, according to the Georgian Statistics Department.

Saakashvili told the ministers that although macroeconomic parameters improved, “but generally the level of consumption is very low.”

“It means that the pockets of the population are quite empty. In order to fill up these pockets – and there is such possibility now as we can already see the light in the end of the tunnel – but until we reach the end of that tunnel, we need to act very vigorously,” Saakashvili said.

He also told the ministers to go to the Parliament and report about their activities and about the results of series of their “dialogue with the public” – a reference to the recent events held in Tbilisi and in number of other towns involving outdoor presentation of the government’s activities.

“I will also appear in the parliament and submit our report and our vision based on that knowledge and wisdom which we received from people,” Saakashvili added.

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