Thank you. Well, Secretary Rice and all of you, I'd like to begin by thanking all the people, both in the United States and Georgia, who made this day possible.
I'd like, first, to thank President Bush and Secretary Rice for this vision and wisdom established and expressed in this bold program. I'd also like to thank U.S. Congress for generous support. I also want to express my deep grief and understanding of what's happening now in the United States. We, people in Georgia, have been watching with concern for friend of the country that showed deeply emotion in the world with American people - is so grateful to the American people.
And for countries like Georgia, it's always so painful - and for my country it's so painful to see whenever this kind of problems do happen here, and I'm sure they'll overcome in the nearest future.
I'd also like to thank staff in Washington, to thank Gretchen Bravnov and Steve Groth and also Paul Applegarth, John Hewko, Jerry Ducavitch, all the other people that have been involved and not to omit to mention, my friend, the late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania who was working together with us from the very beginning on this program.
I think it's really one of the most, I think, by far the most efficient tool of help I'd ever seen and I've seen many assistance programs in my country for the last decade. And I think this is the most efficient, this is the most targeted one, and this is going to produce most of the results.
Georgia is making progress on its own. We've fixed problem with our government bureaucracy, with corruption. I think this problem has been mostly solved. We increased our budget almost five times. That shows the extent of diminished corruption. And the whole country is under reconstruction. I mean, we are building roads all over the place. We are fixing energy systems. We are building hospitals, schools, water sewage systems and all the infrastructure that was so desperately needed. And it's another example of how a free democratic government can provide basic needs for its citizens because it's accountable to the people; because it's under daily scrutiny from our media, from our political organizations, from civil society, from population in general, and that's producing the results.
That's also great confirmation of vision by President Bush, expressed in his historic visit to Tbilisi because Georgia showed that the regime change can take place without even breaking a single window. A new accountable government could be produced with all the complexities that democracy involves can be by far more efficient than the authoritarian, corrupt, kleptocratic regimes that we had previously.
So, again, I have to underline how important our programs on the road, how important program is for program on energy; in general, on poverty reduction and on rural infrastructure development because these are all signs of progress. The expectations have been high but for us the main thing is maintain pace of change, pace of movement, and I think that we have been quite successful in that.
And, again, I want to talk about partnership and this Compact, this partnership. It is a partnership between our two countries; its partnership primarily between our two peoples and peoples - who share the same values, who have the same dreams for their children, and to support one another and to believe in supreme value of liberty and freedom.
Indeed, America has always been associated in my country with liberty, with freedom. I grew up in this way. And I think with - for generations that survive the Soviet's rule, what's happening today, what happened during President Bush's visit to Georgia - and Secretary Rice was also there - what's happening for all these last years is vindication for many years of suffering and their effort to survive, and their effort to develop, and form our own nation state.
Thank you very much, again, Ms. Secretary and thank you for this wonderful occasion. I'm very honored and pleased to be here.
Communications Office
of the President of Georgia