The President of Georgia met the representatives of Governmental economic group and required from them a report on the given tasks. Particularly, MikheilSaakashvili expressed his special interest in the process of fulfillment of 20 GEL electricity vouchers program and tasked the minister to carry out new actions in regards of price increase on products around the world.
"It was given a task to maximally lighten the difficulties to people caused by price increase around the world. First task was distribution of electricity vouchers, because in wintertime families need warmth the most and these vouchers will lighten their living condition in some respect. We try to provide some relief to our people this way. Every family will get 20 GEL with these vouchers, but it is possible to give them to other people as well. Our families, who do not need this additional 20 GEL and for example our relatives, friends need it - it is possible to hand them over. We must exclude bureaucracy and not create long lines for the transfer of this amount on accounts. We also must increase the size of print on vouchers in order for people to read the instructions easily. In city the benefit of this voucher will be less then one month, but in villages less more than one month. In case of less use of electricity it is possible to divide this amount on two months. In conditions when prices increase on products and fuel, especially in winter - it is a step forward in some respect to decrease price on electricity even a bit. This is an expression of solidarity from the side of Government towards those problems that our people have because of this inflation", the President of Georgia stated.
According to the information of the Minister of Energy AlexandreKhetagiru the vouchers are under printing process, the distribution will start from February 10 and will continue to March 15. Users will have to go to company for the registration of voucher only in case if they got it from someone else.
MikheilSaakashvili at the same time noted that proper steps were made this year in regards of increasing crop capacity. It will be significant benefit for the population in these conditions. The President required information from the Minister of Agriculture on the fulfillment of corn program. BakurKvezereli noted that the registration of the applicants wishing to participate in program continues still. He said that after fulfillment of this program the harvest will triple. This will triple the income for each entrepreneur and for those people, who are registered in this program. The ministry offers the whole package of service to people and there are chances for Georgia to export corn.
"If we are not going to increase production of agricultural products and if we wont do this immediately, if we will not invest money in this business, it will be impossible for village to profit in conditions of increased tourism. In reality we will not even be able to feed ourselves, I am not even speaking about those 3 million tourists that we expect to host this year in Georgia. They bring money, part of this money will be spend on hotels and their service, but the rest will go to the neighboring country where we have to import products from. This way we will lose a chance of getting income and this way a serious chance of creating jobs. This is why we need very intensive and serious work of processing factories, because our major response on increased prices is creation of more jobs. People must be able to pay for these prices.
In some countries where people have high salaries they worry less how much buckwheat costs - twice as much or the same. Where people have to fight for existence daily, where people have no jobs, this is huge blow.Specially there is a perspective of creating new jobs in agricultural sphere. These vouchers are some type of relief, but of course it is a very small part of what people really worry about. We must think about this daily, we must take care of our people ten times more than usual. The government must work in the regime of solidarity with their citizens", MikheilSaakashvili noted.
MikheilSaakashvili spoke as well on the necessity of infrastructural projects and tasked RamazNikolaishvili on the facilitation.
"Infrastructural projects mustn't stop, because it means additional jobs. Jobs are created where there are roads, new facilities, railways and stations being constructed. In this case increased prices represent less blow for people. This is why it is impossible to terminate these projects. On the other hand we must mobilize amounts at most. Together with the increase of economy, more amounts come in, but we must distribute these amounts in a right way and we must think together about this issue", the President stated.
The Minister of Finance spoke about budget and money that was spent on agricultural projects.
"We must not allow the deficiency to deepen inflation. I think we have better conditions in this respect". KakhaBaindurashvili nominated the data and noted that 36 million in January is surplus and during these years the ministry worked intensively in this direction, in order to have less expenditures and not to support inflations this way.
"So our aim is to exclude internal factors with our fiscal policy. This is hard in conditions, when so much is spent on the infrastructure. Money is being invested in economy, but money investment and collection mustn't be reflected on prices. Starting from April, May the harvest comes in and we must be expecting some sort of relief.
Unfortunately, our people have experience in 90ies and have very ugly memories, but it is impossible to repeat something like that in these conditions. We had no state then and accordingly had no state policy. Fiscal institutions were fully responsible. Now it is impossible, but we have to keep awake, in order not to deepen this process with internal factors and act in every direction", the President of Georgia noted.