Saakashvili’s Singapore and Dubai way

Georgia should become as important a financial centre as Singapore and Dubai were before the crisis, and we should be able to do so because we going in the right direction, President Saakashvili stated recently. Some Georgian analysts however challenge this. Former MP and Minister of Economy Professor Lado Papava asks what Singapore is, and answers that it is a state with high level economic development based on an authoritarian regime. By taking this economy as your model you indirectly admit that there is, and you would like there to be, an authoritarian regime in your country.

Papava says that Singapore is a long way from the EU, not only geographically but from the point of view of systems and values. However developed Singapore is it is not a European country and if this model is adopted Georgia will follow a non-European development path. To conform with European countries Georgia should adopt European values and pursue an economic course characteristic of Europe. Following the Singapore model would put the country under threat of Russian domination again, thinks Papava.

Nearly the same observation is made by Solomon Pavliashvili, who recommends that Georgia’s economic processes should be integrated with European ones. We should integrate with the European court system, agriculture council, trade council, transport unions and so on, he says.

Georgia received USD 240 million in investment from EU countries in 2005, USD 407 million in 2006, USD 1.132 billion in 2007 and USD 476 million in 2008, the recent decline suggesting lesser rather than greater integration with Europe.