EBRD Annual Meeting due in Tbilisi

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Georgia will represent its successful policies and reforms to the world at the 2015 European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Annual Meeting to be held in Tbilisi next week.

On May 14 and 15 government officials, international business representatives, economists, financial experts and investors will gather in Tbilisi to attend the EBRDS's 24th Annual Meeting. This will be the first time the EBRD Annual Meeting arranged in the Caucasus region, the Bank reports.

Explaining the EBRD preference for Georgia as the host country, EBRD President, Suma Chakrabarti said Georgia was one of the most innovative of the more than 30 countries of operations where EBRD supports transition to free and open markets. And that's allowed the EBRD to introduce new investment instruments in Georgia before bringing them to other countries in our regions.

"Investment has been a positive force for change in Georgia and Georgia in turn has encouraged investors with its very successful policies and reforms. Now our total investment in Georgia stands at 2.6 billion euros. And last year saw a record investment of 214 million euros across many sectors of the Georgian economy - from energy to small and medium-sized businesses," Chakrabarti said.

The EBRD Annual Meeting is the most important event in the bank's annual calendar. This year the EBRD is seeking a mandate from shareholders to step up its response to persistent challenges in the transition economies that it serves.

This year's EBRD Annual Meeting comes against a backdrop of continuing geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty that are holding back the investments needed to raise living standards and prosperity across the societies of the EBRD regions.

During the two-day event, the EBRD's economists will publish new economic forecasts for numerous countries - which stretch from central and south eastern Europe, through to the Caucasus and Central Asia and to the southern and eastern Mediterranean. They will show that a return to growth across the regions as a whole "remains elusive” and that economic weakness in Russia is continuing to have an impact well beyond that country’s borders, said the EBRD on its website.

In Georgia, the EBRD focused on supporting private sector clients directly and via private banks; investing in energy sector projects which aim to increase production and access export markets; supporting the introduction of modern regulatory frameworks; and investing in infrastructure, logistics, telecommunications and the financial sector to support cross-border economic activities.