The President of Georgia together with the Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili met the Minister of Agriculture Bakur Kvezereli and the leadership of the ministry. The President listened to the information on planned works and gave them new tasks.

Mikheil Saakashvili spoke about world crisis as well. According to his words, world crisis will be defeated with the help and participation of agricultural sphere.

The President has noted that the wine popularization campaign should start immediately and the export of wine should be raised next year significantly. He said that tin terms of right organization and working it is possible to raise wine realization in Ukraine by 5 million bottles and in US by 10 million bottles within two years. By 2011 there should be no problem in wine exporting any more. Mikheil Saakashvili considers that it is necessary to eliminate all false Georgian wines.

The President of Georgia noted that Georgia needs only two thousand tractors and if this number of tractors will be drawn in to Georgia by spring, there will be no deficiency of tractors any more. The Prime Minister stated that the government is working very actively with donors and next year Georgia will receive about 20 million assistance in this direction.

He also noted that the world crisis has a serious influence on the products prices - prices on the products reduce significantly.

"Today the local market is not flexible. Mostly people use the milk powder, when they can use the local diary products. The same can be said about vegetables and poultry. If we feel the market with our products, this only measure can serve as important resource in agriculture. But it must be said that in recent years nothing has had such an effect as the tractors that we have distributed for free among the farmers. What we have to do is to improve the service, service centers and market mechanisms", stated Mikheil Saakashvili.

Mikheil Saakashvili paid attention to the rehabilitation works carried out on the irrigation system and noted that by the end of the next year we will reach the level of the communist period, as he said local population must be employed in the construction of the canals and the rehabilitation works.

"I think that from the next year on the country population must be employed massively in the cleaning of the canals. For this we have to find appropriate financing in our budget. This is an important scheme of temporary employment", - noted the President.

As for the project "one hundred enterprises" it is continuing and more than that, there are negotiations held with new investors to open new enterprises of the famous brands.

"Agriculture has a rather important role in employing people. We have to artificially create various projects, in order to make a hard blow of the world crisis easier for our people. Money must be spent on creating working places for the country people. This will be the assistance for these people. 80 percent of agricultural potential is not in use today. So, together with utilization of the market, the major task of the government and especially of the Ministry of the Agriculture has to be a more effective usage of the local resources. This is an intertwined process. If we manage to do it - it will be possible to reduce the results of the world crisis", - stated the President of Georgia.

Communications Office
of the President of Georgia