Meeting with the Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia

12 Mar '14

On March 12, at the meeting with the Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia Davit Usupashvili, Business Association of Georgia came up with an initiative to adopt an "Economic Declaration". The Declaration incorporates the list of fundamental principles, which should be the basis for the relations between the state and businesses and a guarantee for a long-term development of business and a stable business environment. As pointed out by the president of the Association, George Chirakadze "Business Association of Georgia proposes to adopt the Economic Declaration jointly by businesses and the government. Economic Declaration will be an agreement on fundamental issues between the government and businesses, which will outline the rules of the game". According to the Chairperson of the Parliament, "we should think about turning this declaration into a basis of cooperation between the Parliament and businesses as a result of further work". In parallel of the adoption of the declaration, Business Association proposed to the Chairperson of the Parliament and heads of the Parliamentary Committees the information and a position on current important issues for business, that are related to tax environment, retirement system reform, bonds and securities market, labor legislation, development of private arbitrage, free trade and regulatory legal base for competition, etc. As stated by Davit Usupashvili - " Relations between the Parliament and businesses is neither limited to, nor is it about merely specific draft legislations or concrete problems. This is basically a full spectrum of issues that concerns the country. The Parliament is ready to move forward to another standard of relationship with businesses, which will allow members of the Business Association to more actively participate in the process of reviewing draft legislations. We heard reports on taxation issues, private arbitrage, securities, agricultural issues, banking sector. All these topics need to be addressed and moved forward to ensure that the Georgian economy grows at a faster pace. We also discussed the future. The Association Agreement with Europe, deepening of trade relations with Europe will offer more opportunities to Georgia for attracting investments on the one hand, and to access the European market, on the other. However, it will also involve more competition. Georgian businesses should be ready for this. Therefore, we agreed, that Georgian business community will be engaged in the process of European integration, to ensure that their recommendations are considered and businesses are provided with timely information on political decisions. The parties agreed during the meeting, that the Business Association and the Parliament will continue to work on issues raised at the meeting and in the coming days will launch preparations for the adoption of the "Economic Declaration". The meeting between the Business Association of Georgia and the representatives of the Parliament in this format was already held for the second time and up to one hundred business representatives participated in it.