PM Garibashvili Touts China Ties in CGTN Interview

During his recent visit to China, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili sat down for an extensive interview with the China Global Television Network channel. He spoke about Georgian-Chinese relations, the decision to upgrade them to a strategic partnership, Georgia’s regional policy, why Georgia should be attractive to Chinese companies, and Georgia’s participation in the China-led “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), among other issues.

PM Garibashvili called his recent visit “historic” and expressed gratitude to China’s President Xi Jinping for the invitation.

Commenting on the meeting with President Xi and upgrading the relations between China and Georgia to the strategic partnership, Garibashivli said: “We had a very successful and fruitful meeting with President Xi…” I was particularly pleased by the decision to elevate the existing relations to the next level, so Georgia and China became strategic partners.” He also said: “Both countries will benefit from this historic decision. I am going back home with some concrete, tangible results. He praised the opening ceremony of the FISU Games, which he attended, calling it “fantastic,” “spectacular,” and “impressive.”

Asked about his view of President X and his take on Xi’s vision and governance, Garibashivli said: “Without exaggeration, President Xi is truly an exemplary leader, a visionary, a wise man, who did great things for this great nation, and who’s doing very ambitious projects and reforms for your country and for your nation” adding: “ I think he is an inspirational leader.”

“President Xi is truly an exemplary leader, a visionary, a wise man”

PM Irakli Garibashvili

He then shared that during the bilateral meeting, he spoke with President Xi “about the potential of sharing the experience of governance, initiatives that come from China and President Xi himself. He added: “I am very interested in strengthening our bilateral ties, relationship, and friendship and trust with the Chinese government and President Xi.”

When asked about Georgia’s support for and active participation in the BRI, as well as about Global Development, Global Security, and Global Civilization Initiatives proposed by President Xi and how he assesses the significance of these initiatives in addressing global challenges, Garibashvilli said: “I have to tell you honestly that we fully support President Xi’s initiatives and I will tell you why: all his initiatives are pro-peace, pro-progress, modernization, prosperity, pro-development and I think this is great. This is what the world needs today; the world today needs peace, stability, and prosperity… President Xi’s initiatives are really outstanding, and I think they will inspire many nations, many countries… “He added that Georgia was one of the first countries to join the Belt and Road Initiative in 2015, and noting that Georgia used to be a part of the ancient silk road, stressed that to demonstrate Georgia’s support for the initiative, he founded the Tbilisi the Silk Road Forum in 2015.

“All [of President Xi’s] initiatives are pro-peace, pro-progress, modernization, prosperity, pro-development, and I think this is great. This is what the world needs today.”

PM Irakli Garibashvili

Asked about his thoughts on future cooperation under BRI, the PM said: “Georgia has a unique geostrategic location, which is the shortest road to the West. It takes roughly 15 days to transport goods from China to Europe.”

He stressed the potential to develop the so-called Middle Corridor along with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, noting that Georgia signed a “clear roadmap with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.” He said: “We have a full understanding [about] how to increase the capacity of this corridor, of railroads, ports, and other infrastructure.”

Garibashivli said: “In Georgia, we are doing lots of big infrastructure projects: east-west highway, we are now going to start a new project- deep sea Anaklia port, the capacity of this port after implementation of all nine phases will be about 100 million tons.” He also spoke about plans to modernize railway and east-west highway, which he noted, are both done by Chinese companies, adding “and we are quite satisfied with the work they do in Georgia.”

He emphasized that Georgia has a natural capacity to position itself as a transport, logistics, and energy hub. He added that Georgia wants to start constructing “a new world-class airport,” saying it was part of BRI. He also said: “Middle corridor is very important; in the near future, this will become a very interesting alternative route, and we have to be creative, to act fast, and of course, we need full coordination and full openness and transparency.”

During the interview, the PM also spoke about the free trade agreement with China, noting that Georgia was “privileged” to have this agreement and stressing that the negotiations started during his first term as Prime Minister. He said the results have been tangible, with trade volume between the two countries growing 400% in recent years and China becoming the third largest trade partner for Georgia. He said: “Easily, if we continue to export more goods and products to China’s market, and vice versa, China can become the number one trade partner for Georgia.”

Asked about the future prospects for bilateral trade, Garibashivli said: “China, of course, is very important for us. That’s why we fully support the increase of trade and economic relations. I encourage Georgian businesses to do more business with China, to export more goods, such as wine, and other goods.” Asked what he expected Georgia to bring to the Chinese market, the PM mentioned, “high-quality agricultural goods, gold, copper, and other goods as well.”

He stressed that Georgia plans to open tourism centers in various cities in China and wants to promote tourism in both directions.

He also spoke about why Georgia is attractive to foreign companies.

He said in particular that “low taxes, low [level of] bureaucracy, low corruption, transparency” make Georgia attractive, adding that Georgia is “one of the freest economies in the world.” He also stressed that Georgia’s free trade agreements allow access to the 2.3 billion consumers. So, noted PM Garbiashvili, “if Chinese manufacturing companies, or other companies, built branches, factories, or assembly lines, they could easily, without any tax barriers, export their goods to European markets…” He noted: “Georgian government is very pro-business, very open. So we provide maximum support and maximum comfort to Chinese companies.”

“We provide maximum support and maximum comfort to Chinese companies.”

PM Garibashvili

The anchor recalled: “In 2015, during your first premiership, you said in an interview that for the peace and stability of the region, the country has completely changed its approach towards its neighbors and chose to adopt pragmatic, rational, and constructive policies towards them…” She then asked how the PM would characterize Georgia’s diplomatic stance “given the ever-changing global landscape we face now.”

Garibashvili said: “My government is pro-peace government. We want peace, prosperity, stability for our people. Indeed, we managed to have peace and stability in Georgia for the last ten years, so this is the only uninterrupted peaceful and stable period.” He then added: “Therefore, we’ll continue this policy, constructive, pragmatic policy, which is aimed at solving our problems by peaceful means.” His vision, PM said, is “to bring more prosperity to our people, development, progress, rapid modernization and transformation so Georgia can be tuned into a place of peace, stability and prosperity.”

When noted by an anchor that in achieving this goal, different countries chose different paths, which suits their conditions the best, China choosing modernization, and what’s PM’s take on China’s choice, Garibashivili said: “I think China made a very rapid change, and the modernization process that is ongoing right now is absolutely very impressive, and again [it] comes from President Xi,  his policies and, his initiative, which brings more prosperity to Chinese people, and also this could be inspirational to other countries and other nations.”

He said that since 2015 when he first visited China, “every year we see lots of changes, lots of improvements, rapid growth,” adding: “I think this is fascinating, very impressive. Congratulations on everything you have achieved in the last decade and especially during the leadership of President Xi” – concluded Garbashvilil.

During the interview, Garibashvili spoke about the “long history” of contacts and friendship between the two countries, saying, “people-to-people contact will add more value to our relationship.”

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