Mikheil Saakashvili connected to Bloomberg from World Economic Forum of Morocco in live . The first person talked about the Georgian investment and stated that investors are interested in many fields in Georgia. Mikheil Saakashvili attends World Economic Forum, in which about 1000 businessman from 62 countries participate. Economic situation, plans and investing projects are those main issues that the President talked in live.
- Mr. Saakashvili I want to ask you about growth in your country, because I understand Georgia needs some 2 billion dollars an annual foreign direct investment to resume the kind of economic growth and enjoy before the war with Russia, right?
-Well , I think, you know, this year we will have something like 6% growth , I think around 6 , maybe more than 6 according to IMF and next year we hope to get back to 7-8. But actually I think in two years from now we will have double-digit again, but I think most of it is exactly thanks to FDI. I think FDI has been increasing especially late during the last two quarters and I am very optimistic about the outlook in a short-term recovery .
-Georgian government said last year that they have intended the middle East particularly in such investing contact , particularly investing heavily in Georgia, have you managed to actually nail down any actual investment agreements with Qatar?
First of all investments happen in Georgia in many diverse fields. You can hardly say which one is the dominant one. We have lots of investments coming in tourism ,into agriculture, into infrastructure, into energy-sector, overall all in hydropower construction. So yes, there are lots of Qatar's investors coming at the front level, I've been also meeting some of the people yesterday from Kuwait and UAE . I think this is going well. I mean we should realize what is important for these investors in Georgia in a way that it were a déjà-vu , because in a way we are prepositioning Georgia i is like what Dubai was years ago.
-You mentioned the UAE. When will they arrive?
They are already here. I think we already had more than 1billion dollars of investments by the UAE investors. You should look at credentials. According to the World Bank Georgia is number one easiest place in Eastern Europe, Central Europe and post-Soviet space in terms of ease of doing business . We are number 11 in the world hoping to get top 10 this year, hopefully maybe we hold somewhere like 7-8 position , it is hard to predict. But it is very much Anglo-Saxon rating . Nobody in that region comes close to it.
-Now Georgia proves constitutional amendments that will scale back the powers of the president, strengthen parliament. You have previously said these changes we needed. So do you support constitutional amendments pass by the Parliament?
I think that is another example why Georgia stands in front in this region. I mean we have the lowest corruption rate in the region, we have the lowest crime range in the region , we have that easiest place to do business , finally we have come to constitution . That more or less reflects the main stream of European democracy trends in developed European democracy that shows new level of maturity and long-term stability for my country.