The Press Speaker of the President of Georgia held a press briefing today. Manana Manjgaladze spoke about the important events of the past week and drew attention to the initiatives of the President which he touched on during his address at the Parliament of Georgia.
“The new initiative of the President, which envisions employing students, is beginning today. For one full month starting on March 20, students pursuing bachelor’s degrees at authorized universities will have a chance to register at www.summerjob.ge and participate in the student summer job project. The project will start functioning in the entire territory of Georgia from July 20th until August 20th and employ 25,000 students in various state and private jobs. Their salary will be 500 GEL. Private businesses as well as government bodies are in involved in the project. As of now, 3,000 students have already registered and there are some 8,000 in the process of registration” - noted Manana Manjgaladze.
According to her, such a practice has been adopted by many countries and it is being implemented successfully.
The President’s next initiative that the Press Speaker mentioned is related to the main challenge of the government – ways of overcoming unemployment. This program began to be implemented on March 19th and thousands of our citizens will have a chance to receive 1,000 GEL vouchers for vocational education. According to the Press Speaker’s statement, the above-mentioned voucher will help the population in the search for steady jobs as well as settling at those jobs.
“The registration for those seeking profession education will continue until April 20th. Aside from the on-going registration being held in Tbilisi Information Center this process is being held at the Kutaisi and Kobuleti Information Centers as well. Those who are interested have the opportunity to receive relevant information before the beginning of registration. The state has allocated 7 million GEL, which will give an opportunity to 7,000 people to become professionals and be employed. The first to receive vouchers, who decide to learn a profession, will be students from socially unprotected families and graduated from the 9th and 12th grade. According to the initial data, up to 1,500 have already registered in Georgia”- stated she.
Manana Manjgaladze also emphasized the decision of the Parliament, according to which the secondary local agricultural production will be exempt from additional taxes.
“It has to be said that before this legislative decision, the agricultural production produced in Georgia was unattractive to local distribution companies and trade chains. This is exactly why the trade places put the imported production at an advantage, because it was more lucrative to sell imported production in terms of customs tax. After this change, the agricultural production harvested in Georgia has been equalized to the imported production. The beginning of the new initiative will in its turn help develop the agriculture sphere and most importantly the Georgian farmers will have a chance to realize their production, receive more income and expand their business and production.” – noted the Press Speaker and added that the President of Georgia signed the legislation passed in Parliament, on March 19th and it is already functional.
Manana Manjgaladze also touched on the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Guido Westerwelle to Georgia. According to her, during the meeting both sides had a chance to discuss the most important issue at hand in terms of mutual cooperation. She also noted that the issue related to the trade relations between the two countries was of as much importance.
“It is especially important that Germany remains an ally of Georgia on the road to Euro-Atlantic integration. Most importantly, it was once again noted that Germany is an unconditional supporter of sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country” – stated the Press Speaker.