Enterprise Georgia presents Investment Strategy and Action Plan 2020-21
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, December 18
According to the Minister, as a result of the strategy, in the next 2 years, along with many other benefits, 3500 new jobs will be created in the most promising sectors.
Turnava noted that despite all the global or domestic challenges, Georgia has done and achieved a lot in the process of becoming a regional investment hub. The minister said that they will do their best to strengthen these trends in the coming years. “That is why we have developed a new, proactive strategy on how we will attract investors in the next 2 years and increase FDI inflows,” she noted.
She explained that in a small country like Georgia, the amount of foreign direct investment year-to-year depends heavily on the start-up dates of individual large projects. Therefore, it would be appropriate to consider this figure in the medium term.
“In the last 7 years, the average level of foreign direct investment has increased by 35% compared to the same period last year. In Georgia, compared to other countries in the region, FDI's share of GDP is 3 times higher; 14% increase in FDI in the third quarter is promising as well, and more importantly, the volume of reinvestment, has doubled, with the share of FDI from 34.1% to 62%, indicating increased confidence from foreign investors,” said Turnava.
The Minister expressed her gratitude to the agency’s team “Invest in Georgia”, which worked actively on the strategy, which was prepared by the IFC methodology and with the involvement of international experts. It reflects the stage of Georgia's development when it is possible to attract more high-tech, knowledge-based and strategically important investments in the country.
Detailed information on the strategy and action plan was presented to the audience by Mikheil Khidureli, Head of the Agency of Production in the Ministry of Economy of Georgia.
The investment promotion strategy includes the selection of priority sectors for 2020-2021, investment attraction (direct and indirect communication, image-building).
He identified criteria the investment sector should be selected in accordance with. The sector must be fully aligned with the country's economic strategy, must serve to increase the knowledge and know-how in the country and advancing technologies. The selected sector should also be export-oriented, attractive for investors, and have a competitive advantage.
The selected sectors are the following: hospitality and real estate, business process outsourcing (BPO), apparel and footwear, electronic equipment components, automotive and aerospace components.
As stated in the presentation, direct communication will include studying 7,000 companies and selecting and directly communicating with 700 of them. Through meetings/visits with investors, the agency aims to carry out 10 large and 16-20 medium-sized investment projects worth $225 million in total. Indirect communication entails cooperation with location advisors, companies that give advice to investors on where to invest.
Besides, Khidureli presented the updated version of the web page investingeorgia.org. The investor is given the opportunity to see the roadmap and get information regarding specific sectors, compulsory processes and documentation which investors should go through to invest in a given sector.
The web page has the benchmarking function, which can be used to compare Georgia to about 50 countries in ease of doing business, the burden of taxation and other criteria.
As a part of the image-building of the country, advertisements have run on Bloomberg in November and December.
The presentation of the strategy and action plan was held at the State Ceremonies Palace, attended by representatives of both the government and the private sector.