I am charmed and encouraged by what I saw here.
I met with the Norwegian company representative before coming here, who is going to start the construction of the great dam in Shuakhevi and Khulo. He told us that they would hire and employ many local people.
It is noteworthy that a large part of the local people employed at the construction of the Paravani Dam is sent abroad for work. The Georgian specialists are doing such a good job that the Turkish company sends them to different continents for the construction of hydro electrical stations.
This is exactly what I was talking about. Georgians should specialize in construction right here and then with the help of the Turkish, French or Americans strengthen our companies to the to the point where our construction companies will construct dams or other facilities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Space.
We should be able to export knowledge and people. What did we export before? Our people ran away from here and this is what was called export. Many Georgians are returning today, but at first, we need to create jobs for the people here.
Who can find a job? Those who have the ability to work and with minimal qualification can.
Our problem is that quite often we do not have people that specialize in certain fields.
This is not the people’s fault, as nothing had been happening throughout the past 15 years.
We are building technical universities. We have already opened a few in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and other regions of Georgia.
There will be a few dozen more opened across Georgia. Besides this, we have introduced the 1,000 GEL vouchers.
There are people of different ages gathered here.
Some of you are a bit older than me, while some are – younger.
There is hardly anyone for whom getting a new profession and retraining will be difficult at any age.
In the beginning, when we started to pave roads in Tbilisi, I remember happily meeting the road technique operator, I wanted to talk to him and it turned out that he was Dutch.
This foreigner was probably paid several thousand Euros for one month’s work. Whereas today, we are spending this amount more efficiently and the bulk of it is paid to the Georgian labor force.
A similar case had occurred few years ago after the government meeting on the issue of construction of the “Kempinsky” Hotel – I heard the voice of an elevator machine operator, who regretfully turned out to be a foreigner.
I have promised the members of the government at that very moment that we would hire Georgians instead of foreigners on such jobs.
The results have practically been achieved.
The unemployment rate will be less than 10 percent in two-three years. The 10 percent left unemployed will be the unqualified people who refused training. Those who are acquiring new professions and are improving their qualification today, will be a hundred percent employed.
Every single region of Georgia is to be built and developed.
There has never been so much construction in the history of Georgia than there is today.
Poti needs to be developed – there is a lot of construction work to be carried out.
Lazika has a huge prospect; we are working to elaborate a legal framework for it together with foreigner specialists. Lazika will be mainly populated by those people, who reside in different cities today.
Precisely these people will develop the industry of Lazika and will start construction.
Many might not even move to Lazika to live, but people residing nearby Lazika will go there for work every day or to Poti by way of a good road.
Such people will neither abandon the land work nor their own homes, besides they will create an industrial and logistical potential for the country.
The main objective for us today is to put our internal market into full spin. We have to provide everything with local production, while beginning to export to foreign markets afterward.
Adjara is a good example of this, where 80-90 percent of the goods were imported while today, within the free trade agreement, the locally grown greenhouse tomatoes are already being exported to Turkey.
We should manage it so that the specialists trained in Georgia go abroad to work not for pennies, but for high salaries and with the use of their knowledge manage the local labor force here.
No generation will be lost – people of all ages should be able to join in the common pace of labor in Georgia.
When I became President, only 120 thousand tourists would visit Georgia, this figure reached 3 million last year, we should have 4 million this year, while next and in the years to come we expect 5 and more million tourists.
If we have better trained human resources, this figure will increase even more next year.
Some say that by training people like that we will turn Georgians into waiters. I want to ask you, are the Italians or French waiters?
In addition to the source of income, tourism is a factor of security for everyone.
For example, we are expecting about one million tourists in Georgia this year. Precisely these people will bring truth about Georgia back to their own country.
This process will limit the options of the provocateur to materialize their evil intentions.
This process will contribute to the establishment of Georgia on the world map.
Greece became the member of the EU based on that principle.
Lots of European tourists had visited Greece in 70s and saw that it actually was a European country. No one had rejected Greece’s admission to the EU after that.
Thus, besides income, tourism for us is a matter of geopolitics and security; it is a very solid guarantee of the long-term development of our country.
Hence, everyone who studies the job of a barman or hotel administrator gives us an opportunity for the strategic development of the country.
Look how the development of construction firms is underway in Adjara.
90 percent of these constructions are carried out by Georgians.
Our construction companies started out with 3-4 floor houses, and today they are already building 30-40 floor buildings.
I was charmed with one of the ongoing constructions a while ago and the manager of it told me that he had acquired the construction experience in Trabzon.
He is a talented man who employs 100-150 local residents in his successful work. While the employees, in turn, maintain their own families. It figures that all these families form one great family with the employer.
It has been the third day that the “revolution” is ongoing in Georgia – absolutely every customer is requesting receipts in the trade centers.
On the one hand, the request for receipts means redistribution of money on construction, rehabilitation of roads or building of new airports, increase of income for the population, creating jobs for more Georgians, strengthening of our country and its defense; while on the other, the buyer gets a chance to receive a monetary present.
We have been proud of our strong police and now I will also be proud of the fact that there will the most modern tax system in Georgia, 80 percent of which will be electronic.
We are all building our country together. We had a 7 percent economic growth last year, which is considered to be a high indicator across the world. While this year, we anticipate to raise this indicator to ten percent.
The construction of new dams is also to begin this year. Only the Namakhvan Dam will produce 500 mega watts.
All the preparation work of the Khudon Dam are already finished and its construction will be completed by 2015, otherwise we will have a shortage of electricity.
All of this means that there will be no one left in Georgia without a job.
I was visiting South Korea a while ago. It took 40 years for this country to become a developed nation. Despite of the enemy fighting us, which does not want us to develop, we overcome its resistance and have managed this much in 5-6 years.
Regretfully, the unemployment rate today is at 20-30 percent in the cities, but the prospect and progress of the country will reduce this percentage to a minimum and we will accomplish everything.
I wish you luck.
Thank you very much.