Prime Minister’s Advisor for Business Protection Issues Meeting the Members of the Business Association

24 May '10

On May 24 the BAG Supervisory Board and the members met the Advisor of Prime Minister of Georgia George Pertaia to speak about current and planned economic reforms.

Expert Zurab Abashidze, Doctor of Political Science, had been invited to the meeting to discuss Georgia-Russia relations and EU security issues.

In his welcoming speech the President of the Association George Chirakadze emphasized that George Pertaia who has been appointed as Prime Minister's Advisor for Business Interests Protection Issues has extensive experience in working on business-related problems and comprehensive understanding of these problems.

According to him, consideration of business interests by the government, jointly working on the reforms, legislative amendments and thus having the sense of co-participation is of utmost importance for the business.

Through its Committees the BAG is fruitfully cooperating with line ministries and is actively involved in the ongoing reforms.

As stated by George Pertaia, there is a plan to set up an agency at the Prime Minister's office focusing on the research of problems faced by the business. To this end important role is granted to close cooperation with the Business Association of Georgia and other business unions.

Special emphasis was made on the need of small and medium business involvement in the planned reforms and on the importance of analyzing the problems faced by them; To work on the new draft tax code a group is to be set up in the nearest future in which the companies engaged in large, as well as small and medium businesses of various areas will be actively involved.

In the second half of the meeting participants heard Zurab Abashidze who spoke about the EU security system, the new strategy of North Atlantic Organization and Georgia's potential role in the processes ongoing in the Caucasus.

According to the expert, Georgia's extremely complicated relations with Russia can not continue forever but talks about renewal of diplomatic relations is not feasible at this stage. However, dialogue on separate issues is inevitable.