Population and business haven’t noticed the transition of the Republic of Georgia to the category of countries middle and high-incomes as it is classified by the World Bank today. Georgian experts told "Vestnik Kavkaza" told today, commenting on the statement of Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili about the importance of Georgia’s transition to a higher category of the standard of living.
So, the president of Independent Experts Club, Iosif Tsiskarishvili, said that the World Bank has moved to Georgia in high-income countries in advance. "I think it may be in future, on the basis of the reforms that were carried out the past few years. Elite corruption in the country is almost minimized financial processes have become much more open and fully transparent, public organizations are constantly engaged in monitoring the expenditure of the state budget. Of course, not without the participation of foreign sponsors who finance these projects," he said.
"Nevertheless, the main pain of the Georgian society is unemployment. It hasn’t been resolved. Yet, it is important that the conditions for a more solid investment in the Georgian economy are increasing, especially since the activity of the Georgian government on the became obvious. And especially now after Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili came to power. All this will help Georgia in future rightfully take a place in the group of countries with high incomes, but not now," Iosif Tsiskarishvili said.
Head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Peter Mamradze, pointed to several reasons why the World Bank could mistakenly put Georgia into the top ranks rating.
"The first thing that come to my mind when I read this information is that after the census of the population we had 800,000 less than during the Saakashvili regime. He needed it to bluff in the elections and use the "dead votes". It turned out that 3.5 million people live in Georgia, instead of 4.3 million. The World Bank cannot independently carry out a census of the population. Such a decrease in the the citizens of Georgian citizens by 800,000 people can lead to such a change in the rating,’’ he assumed.
The expert noted that Georgian has already had a minimum positive trend in the socio-economic sphere today.
"This is a trend, not more. Now the business has revenue at least, it is not taken by officials, as it was at Saakashvili times. This monopoly has remained since that time, and they continue to increase prices in our little Georgia. At the same time I can note some economic growth, large-scale are slowly on its way. Tourism has grown, there are also other areas of investments,’’ he mentioned.
