Miss World Georgian Contestant Revealed
August 4, 2008
The finals of the beauty contest revealed 18 year-old Khatuna Skhirtladze as Miss Georgia 2008. The jury chose Khatuna to represent Georgia at the Miss World contest in Kiev on October 4. Runner-up Lika Orjonikidze takes on the task of battling it out for Miss Universe, and the third place winner – Kristine Dzidziguri will compete for the crown of Miss Tourism International.
Last year Miss World was from China, the People’s Republic of - Zhang Zi Lin.
The organization of the event is Image Centre. The latter has an exclusive right to represent Georgia at Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss Tourism beauty contests.
According to Image Centre, the company has no competitors on the local market as this agency is developed in various directions. Image Centre represents Elite Model Look Georgia in Georgia. The company has the experience of having organized Miss Georgia for the past 6 years. Image Centre holds the license of the two biggest competitions Miss World and Miss Universe, also Miss Tourism International and Miss Intercontinental.
“Miss Georgia is far more profitable for the agency, but only if we manage to make sponsors interested in the project. Finding sponsors in Georgia is one of the most difficult challenges to take. Event management is developing now and supposedly will expand soon. Miss Georgia is a long term project as it takes at least 6 months to get ready. However this project is becoming more and more popular every year,” says the company.
Since 2003 this has been the sixth Miss Georgia contest and it is has become more popular amongst the Georgian population. Almost all the cities and regions are involved in this event (Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Gori, Rustavi, Zugdidi, Poti, Ozurgeti, Lagodekhi, Telavi, Borjomi).
The parameters of the most beautiful girl in Georgia are: height – 177cm; body measurements - 84 - 61 - 89.
The contest was held on July 27 at Batumi Drama theatre.
22 girls from different regions of the country participated in Miss Georgia 2008. 13 contestants were from Tbilisi ; none from Georgia’s conflict zones of South Ossetia or Abkhazia.
Miss Georgia was awarded with an automobile Peugeot 207 from Iberia Motors.
Girls of ages ranging from 17 to 25 years longed to become the proud holders of the Miss Georgia title.
The contestants gave their best attempts at looking like beauty queens as they modelled modest swimsuits, casual wear and evening dresses.
For the first time one woman was chosen as Miss Internet through online polling, while votes cast by SMS for GEL 1 went to picking Miss People’s Choice. Pageant organizers said they would donate those revenues to a children’s orphanage near Batumi in Makhinjauri.
Miss Internet went to Tatia Donadze from Tbilisi . The perspicacious judges also named her Miss Talent.
Georgia’s most successful contestant abroad was Miss Georgia 2003 Irina Onashvili, who was named Miss Talent for her singing in that year’s Miss World.
The model agency Image Centre selected twenty-two young women this year for Miss Georgia 2008, 300 participants took part in the selection. The Georgian beauties were trained during the one-month preparatory period, first in Tbilisi and later in Batumi.
Participants of the competition Miss Georgia must meet the following requirements: they must be a citizen of Georgia, aged between 17 and 24, height from 168 cm and not married.
In 2003, Georgia for the first time took part in the annual international beauty competition Miss World, where only one of the world’s most beautiful girls is awarded the Miss World Title.
Organizers of Miss Georgia 2003 were Model Agency Image Centre, Broadcasting Company Rustavi 2 and Advertisement Company Imperial.
Miss Georgia 2003 travelled to the city Sanya, China to participate in Miss World 2003. She was 19 year old Irina Onashvili, who was presented with a flat from Building Company Arci and an automobile Mercedes from Company Canargo Standard Oil. Irina was named Miss Talent for her singing in Miss World 2003.
Runner up Miss Georgia 2003 Nino Murtazashvili took part in the International Competition Miss Universe, where she was granted the people’s and organizers’ sympathy.
Miss Georgia 2004 was Salome Chikviladze. She went to Miss World 2004 and Miss Tourism International 2004.
Miss Georgia 2005 Salome Khelashvili took part in Miss World 2005.
Miss Georgia 2006 was Ana Kalandadze who went to the international competition Miss World.
Winning a beauty contest is the dream of many young girls. And last summer it became a reality for 18 year old Nino Likuchova., although she turned out to be a Mrs.
This year’s competition is so far without scandal, a break from the year 2007 when contest winner Nino Likuchova said she was bride kidnapped after marriage records revealed she wasn’t a Miss at all.
Runner up 20 year old Nino Lekveishvili was slated to take the crown, but it turned out that she too had been married. This was a big scandal in Georgia.
This farcical turn of events caught the organizers totally off guard. They were called incompetent for failing to check the contestant’s histories.
Source: Mundo Miss, The Financial, August 2008
mundomiss.blogspot.com/2008/08/miss-world-georgian-contestant-revealed.html
Chairman of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze meets his Beatitude, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, Theodor II
July 31, 2008
Chairman of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze met with the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Theodor II. The High official guest is making visit to Georgia to take part in the arrangements for the anniversary of His Holiness and Beatitude, Catholics - Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II.
During the meeting, they spoke about the role of Georgian Orthodox Church in the current processes and the relations between Georgian and Alexandria’s Churches. The guest underlined that Georgian Catholics - Patriarch, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II is a wise man, who writes not only the history of Georgian Church, but also the history of all Georgian State.
“This is an historical visit. Our relationship has old and experienced tradition, so this visit is very important not only for them, but for us as well”, - said Georgian Catholics - Patriarch, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II.
At the end of the meeting, the guest and the hosts exchanged the presents. Theodor II made an entry in the book for honorable guests. After the meeting Chairman of the Georgian parliament David Bakradze called the day as a peculiar and delighted - “We are always delighted with the visit of Georgian Catholics - Patriarch, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, especially today when such a high official and honorable guest visited us. Today this building is full of charity, that is so rare in these walls. I am very happy to get the chance to meet and have a talk with such a high official guest ”.
Source: The Parliament of Georgia, July 2008
www.parliament.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=1128&info_id=19678
Daily Parliament Update - 29 July 2008
July 29, 2008
Meeting of the Chairman of Parliament with National Defence Academy Officers
Chairman of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze met the Chief of Georgian David Agmashenebeli National Defence Academy, Colonel Tariel Londaridze and Academy Officers in the Parliament. At the meeting was discussed the issues on the country’s security. They paid attentions to the risks and problems always accompany the regulations of conflicts.
The Sides also discussed NATO membership perspectives. One of the political orders towards the Defence Ministry is our military forces to reach the level of NATO standards and the partner countries of NATO must realize that the progress, on the way of our membership to NATO, would help the conflicts peaceful regulations. David Bakradze wished Georgian Officers success in their service and profession.
At the end of the meeting, Colonel Tariel Londaridze in the name of all Officers thanked the speaker for support and care from the side of government and expressed his readiness to fulfill the tasks set before them.
Bureau Sitting of Parliament
Chairman of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze opened today’s bureau sitting with welcoming words to Georgian singers, having reached great success and won the main prize in the Iurmala Festival.
“I congratulate Georgian Singers to win the first prize in the Iurmala prestigious festival. This is the greatest victory of Georgian song and Georgian culture. I welcome the winners and Lela Tsurtsumia as well, who discovered this duet and helped them”, - said David Bakradze. After they return back, State Structures would accordingly appraise their merit and great service to Georgian Culture”, - noted the Speaker.
After welcoming words, members of the bureau fully approved the decisions of the treasury council, necessary for normal function of the parliament. They also accepted information of the parliamentarian Korneli Kukulava about his taking part in the congress held in Baku on July 11-13 by the initiative of tea producers’ associations of Azerbaijan, Russia and Caucasus Business and Development network.
Members of the bureau accepted information of the Finance and Budget Committee about the elect of Nikiloz Laliashvili as a deputy chair of the committee.
Source: The Parliament of Georgia, July 2008
www.parliament.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=1
Theodore II Arrives in Georgia - Video
July 29, 2008
Eastern Orthodox Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa Theodore II has arrived in Georgia with an official visit.
As reported, Eastern Orthodox Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa Theodore II will stay in Georgia for 13 days and to hold meetings with representatives of the Georgian authorities.
During his visit, he will visit many monasteries and cathedrals, including the Cathedral of Svetitskhoveli, the Batumi Cathedral, and Vardzia.
Link to Story:
http://www.rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=27225&pg=1&im=main&ct=0&wth=
Link to Video:
www.rustavi2.com/news/video.php?fr=video&id_news=27225&lang=eng&ftp1=1&ftp2=0&ftp3=0
Source: Rustavi 2 Broadcasting Co., July 2008
The Iron Silk Road Advances Further
July 25, 2008
Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, and Abdullah Gul of Turkey inaugurated on July 24 in Kars the construction work on the Turkish section of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku (KTB) railroad. A project of inter-continental significance, connecting Europe and Asia through the South Caucasus, this “Iron Silk Road” is being built by the region’s countries through their own efforts.
Azerbaijan is the locomotive in the KTB railroad, as in the region-wide energy projects. Baku single-handedly finances the railroad’s construction on Georgian territory, drawing on early oil revenues to invest in this strategic railroad. Azerbaijan rescued the project after the European Union, international financial institutions, and Turkey for various reasons had declined to finance the Iron Silk Road. According to Turkish Transportation Minister Bineli Yildirim, “If Ilham Aliyev had not demonstrated resolve, this project would not have been possible. Azerbaijan’s decision to finance the Georgian section is the most important step in the implementation of this project” (Trend Capital, July 14).
The KTB project involves construction of 105 kilometers of new rail tracks from scratch, including 76 kilometers on Turkish territory to the Georgian border and 29 kilometers within Georgia. It also necessitates repair and upgrading of 183 kilometers of existing rail track on Georgian territory. The overall costs are estimated (in 2007 U.S. dollar terms) at $600 million, including $422 million for the railroad itself and nearly $200 million for associated infrastructure.
The International Bank of Azerbaijan has provided a $200 million loan for the project on uniquely preferential terms: 25-year repayment period, at only 1 percent annual interest. Georgia will repay the loan by using part of the revenue generated by the railroad on Georgian territory.
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey signed the intergovernmental agreement on KTB in February 2007. Construction work on the Georgian section started in November 2007, with Azerbaijan’s Azerinshaat Service company acting as general contractor.
Speaking at the inauguration of work on the Turkish section on July 24, Saakashvili remarked that Azerbaijan is acting in practical terms as a “guarantor of Georgia’s independence,” financing the railroad now after having supplied Georgia with low-cost gas during the Russian blockade of January-February 2006. “The Georgian people will never forget this,” Saakashvili commented (Kavkas-Press, July 24).
The railroad is scheduled for completion in 2011. It is expected to carry 1.5 million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo per year during the first three years of operation. Traffic is projected to increase to 3 million passengers and 15 million tons of cargo per year until 2015. This could stimulate a substantial expansion in the capacity of Turkish State Railways, which currently handles 19.5 million tons of cargo annually (Anatolia Agency, Turkish Daily News, July 20, 21).
Functionally interrelated with the KTB, though a distinct entity, is Turkey’s Marmaray project to build a railroad tunnel under the Bosporus. With completion expected by 2010, the tunnel will enhance the KTB railroad’s commercial attractiveness. Trains will be able to travel without interruption from any point in Europe (e.g., London) continuously to the Caspian Sea.
On the eastern Caspian shore, Kazakhstan is interested in a trans-Caspian linkup with KTB’s terminal in Baku. The KTB railroad will open direct access for Kazakhstan to European Union territory for the first time. Kazakhstan plans a massive increase in its commodity exports to Europe, including grain exports. With this in mind, Kazakhstan is completing an 800,000-ton grain-handling terminal near Baku, for trans-shipment from barges to the railroad.
Asked about Armenia’s absence from the KTB project, President Gul commented in general terms that countries wishing to participate in region-wide projects should respect the territorial integrity of their neighbors (Zaman, July 24). This diplomatic comment reflects the ongoing feelers between Turkey and Armenia about a possible high-level meeting to ameliorate relations (see article by Gareth Jenkins below). In fact, Yerevan had actively opposed the KTB project and worked with its allies in the United States and Europe to block international funding for it.
Yerevan had hoped to force a change of route, diverting the KTB line from Kars to Gyumri in Armenia. This would have made no economic sense inasmuch as the Kars-Gyumri line (existent, but closed by Turkey due to Yerevan’s occupation of Azerbaijani lands) is a sideline, of merely local interest. Earlier, and similarly, Yerevan and allied groups in the West had unsuccessfully opposed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
Thanks to KTB, Azerbaijan and Turkey will be linked with each other by railroad for the first time, albeit through Georgia. In addition, Baku and Ankara intend to connect Nakhchivan, the Azerbaijani exclave, with Turkey’s railroad system. President Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed during their recent meeting in Nakhchivan to go ahead with this project (Trend Capital, July 14).
In a related development, Turan Air company in Baku inaugurated on July 21 regular direct flights between Haidar Aliyev International Airport and Kars (Day.az, July 21). Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey are beginning to form what amounts to a common economic region, increasingly connected with Europe and potentially with Central Asia, on either side of this region’s territory.
Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor, July 2008
www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373258
The Empty Frame: Reclaiming Georgian Cinema’s Legacy
July 25, 2008
It’s not just Abkhazia and South Ossetia that divide Tbilisi and Moscow. The issue of who holds the rights to Soviet-era Georgian films is also a touchstone of contention.
Known for producing tragic-comedic films illuminated by a deep knowledge of human nature, unforgettable actors, and a strain of absurdist, non-conformist humor, Tbilisi was a filmmaking center of the Soviet world, the most prolific one outside of Moscow itself.
But aside from about a handful of titles on DVD, the vast majority of classic Georgian films is now virtually inaccessible to contemporary audiences, even in Georgia itself.
A great part of the Georgian cinematic past remains locked up, literally and figuratively, in the depths of Moscow’s Gosfilm Fund — the Russian state archive that serves as a museum, morgue and library for original film reels from all over the former Soviet Union. Prints of a number of classic Georgian films also exist in Paris and Berlin, a residue of a late-era Soviet retrospective. No one knows which films ended up where.
It’s not just a question of royalties, but also a matter of national identity. With over 700 films produced by Georgian directors and cinematographers during the Soviet era, including Mikheil Kalatozov’s 1957 landmark “The Cranes Are Flying,” (the first Soviet film to take Cannes by storm), this body of work is both aesthetically and historically significant. Some of the records of this cinematic history disappeared in the Stalin era, erased along with the exile of experimental artists to the Gulag.
The range of extant work is broad, eccentric and intermittently brilliant: including silent-era oddities, Stalinist wartime propaganda films, magical realist allegories, lavishly costumed oriental fantasias, documentaries, biographies and early animation works.
With the centennial anniversary of the birth of Georgian filmmaking coming next year, many now want access to the original negatives of the cinema classics that remain locked in Russian vaults.
It is a mission that the eminent Georgian cultural historian Lasha Bakradze believes should get equal ranking with discussions about economic blockades or conflict resolution. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. “My idea — and I’m talking this over with the Georgian authorities — is that every time they discuss politics or economics with the Russians, they must talk also about this cultural heritage, because for Georgia this 100-year-old filmmaking tradition is very important,” says Bakradze. “The Russians say, nominally, that these are our [Georgia’s] films, but they will not give them to us.”
That Georgian mission has become even more pressing in recent years. In 2005, a fire ravaged parts of Tbilisi’s film storage facility, ruining many of Georgia’s archived film copies. The Georgian soundtracks were especially damaged by the blaze (alternate soundtracks in Russian exist in Moscow).
Extensive financial resources are needed to refurbish the rest of the cinematic canon. No modern archival storage exists in Tbilisi. Building a new one would be an expensive venture. Yet the cultural cost of having no extant film archive and allowing Georgia’s cinematic legacy to molder away seems higher still.
That puts the focus back on Moscow. “It’s a big problem,” says Konstantine Chlaidze, director of the Georgian National Film Center. “Because our relations with Russia are not good,” access can be a thorny issue, requiring deep pockets, as well as patience to negotiate the visa issues, paperwork, and contracts needed to duplicate meters and meters of fragile negatives, he elaborates. In many respects, adds the Film Center’s Anna Dziashipa, who runs the film export division, the bureaucracy remains Soviet in all but name. “Everything depends on personal contacts and money.”
Even without those obstacles, intellectual property rights issues are complex. “Sometimes the Russians think they own the rights to these films,” sniffs one film archivist. A recent example is the sale of rights to the 1929 Georgian silent-era classic by Kote Mikaberidze, “My Grandmother.”
After two years of negotiations, Moscow’s Gosfilm sold the rights to San Francisco composer Beth Custer, who created new music and made a splash at international film festivals. Now Custer’s DVD of Mikaberidze’s film is being sold in America, for $20 a pop. No royalties are returning to Georgia.
Officials from Georgia’s Film Center say that Custer told them that she didn’t intend to step on any toes. She claims that she carefully negotiated the rights with Moscow’s state archive, unaware that she was buying something that might not be theirs in the first place, they say. Breaches in intellectual property rights are notoriously hard to enforce, especially across international lines.
It is a dilemma only too familiar for acclaimed Georgian film director Eldar Shengalaia, the current head of the Georgian Filmmakers’ Union.
“There are treaties [in which] Russia declares those movies to be a part of Georgian heritage, and acknowledges that one will be able to exploit these movies without the consent of Georgia,” Shengalaia told EurasiaNet. “There’s no practice yet of filing a suit in court. It’s not clear what we would win.”
As head of the Georgian Filmmakers’ Union, Shengalaia says that he prefers to negotiate for the rights to copy individual films, with the goal of gradually re-mastering the 400 Georgian feature films in high-quality digital versions.
A wealthy Georgian businessman who prefers to remain anonymous is backing the project, but more support will be needed to complete the task.
The challenge alone sparks recognition of cinema’s role in Soviet days. Shengalaia remarks, “I cannot say what the goal of Georgian cinematography is now, but while the Soviet Union existed, we lived in a totalitarian anti-democratic country, where human rights were ignored daily, and Georgian movies we were trying, indirectly, allegorically, to fight that regime.”
Georgian artistry once survived repression; but the question remains, can it survive the vagaries of the free market? To make its mark, Georgia must first fight to overcome its island mentality, contends writer Bakradze. “Outsiders think this country was born . . . at the end of the Soviet Union. We must do something for this. We are not doing enough,” Bakradze said.
Bakradze and his colleagues at the Georgian Film Center have anticipated the centennial by rolling out a comprehensive electronic database, but the website is currently only available in Georgian.
Still, some hope endures for grabbing international attention. The Film Center is discussing an invitation from New York’s Museum of Modern Art for a centennial retrospective of two leading Georgian directorial families, the Babluanis and the Shengalaias. Yet the technical obstacles are daunting. New positive copies must be printed, subtitles added. And then there is the delicate matter of politics. How do you explain to an international venue that many Georgian films are — as yet — unavailable in Georgia?
Film Center Director Chlaidze notes: “Once, there was censorship and lots of money. It was good for artistic growth. You wanted to say something, but you needed to think about how to say it.” Now, he adds ruefully, “we have no money and no censorship.”
Source: Eurasianet.Org, July 2008
www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav072508af.shtml
Ex-Priest Released from Jail
July 25, 2008
Defrocked Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili was released on July 25 from jail early, after serving four years of a six-year jail sentence.
Mkalavishvili was arrested in 2004 and found guilty of masterminding and carrying out organized violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptist-Evangelists and burning their religious literature. Mkalavishvili was excommunicated in 1995, after he criticized the Orthodox Church leadership for not taking a “radical stance” towards religious minorities.
Source: Civil.Ge Online Magazine, July 2008
www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=18845
Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan Launch Joint Rail Link
July 24, 2008
Leaders of Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan have launched a railway project between the three countries, building on links already forged by gas and oil pipelines.
At a railway station in the eastern Turkish border town of Kars, the presidents of the three countries held a ground-breaking ceremony for the $290 million Turkish section of the railway.
The three countries are already linked by the BP-led Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas line but trade links between Turkey and the Caucasus region are limited.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev placed three sections of railway track on a large map of the region in a symbolic launch of the project as confetti showered down.
A tender last September for construction of the 76-kilometer Turkish stretch of the railway was won by the Ozgun Yapi-Celikler joint venture with a bid of $289.8 million, the lowest of 14 bids.
The project involves new track construction and renewal of existing track, and is expected to be completed in 2011.
Source: RFE/RL, July 2008
www.rferl.org/content/Turkey_Georgia_Azerbaijan_Launch_Joint_Rail_Link/1185906.html
Down on the Farm: Georgia Struggles To Open EU Market For Agricultural Exports
July 23, 2008
Gone are the days when a female tea worker in a straw planter hat symbolized Georgia to regional neighbors, or when bottles of Georgian wine and mineral water were commonplace on the dining tables of citizens in formerly Soviet states. Barred from the Russia market, Georgia is now trying to reorient agricultural exports toward Europe. But stringent European Union quality and safety rules are proving a formidable export obstacle.
Once a thriving agricultural republic within the Soviet Union, Georgia today imports up to 80 percent of the agricultural produce it consumes, according to official figures. While agriculture still employs more than 55 percent of Georgia’s work force, rampant rural poverty has forced many farmers in recent years to migrate to large towns, especially Tbilisi and Batumi. Those farmers who remain in the countryside generally work small plots that cannot provide the output volume needed to boost production levels – or to take the vast European market by storm.
Agricultural production has increased by just 3 percent since the Russian embargo against Georgian wine, mineral water, fruit and vegetables went into effect in 2006. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In 2007, the sector generated roughly 1.6 million lari (about $1.14 million), just shy of pre-embargo levels. Exports of wine, fruit, citrus, nuts, bay leaves and herbs have been largely redirected to markets such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, countries that inherited from the Soviet Union an appreciation for Georgian foodstuffs.
But penetrating the EU – with its 500 million potential customers, the world’s largest food importer – is turning out to be a more daunting task than originally envisioned. And this despite the fact that Georgia, as a developing economy, is entitled to the EU’s privileged trade tariffs system, known as the Generalized System of Preferences. Agriculture Minister Bakur Kvezereli estimates that the country’s export volume remains “very small.”
An elaborate set of “from-farm-to-fork” safety rules that control not only food content, but labeling for product ingredients, suppliers and production practices has proven the biggest single snag. Separate requirements from individual member states, supermarket chains and distributors are creating additional hurdles.
European farm policy chiefs say the standards are meant to protect consumers, but, after decades compromising quality for quantity, Georgia is finding it hard to meet standards. “We have had several cases when shipments of wine had been sent back from places like Germany due to inconsistent quality,” said Maria Iarrera, an agricultural policy analyst at the European Commission’s mission in Tbilisi.
Meanwhile, some Georgian farmers simply wonder why the government cannot step in to buy up more of their products.
Georgia’s former EU Ambassador Konstantin Zaldastanishvili says it is imperative to raise awareness of the EU food safety system among Georgian producers. “It is very important to inform producers about such issues as labeling, product shipment details, documents on provenance, the use of fertilizers and chemicals in growing the crops,” said Zaldastanishvili, who also heads the EU-Georgia Business Council, a non-profit group that consults with businesses on how to export to the EU.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, also demands that export countries’ governments monitor compliance with EU hygienic and other standards. According to Iarrera, the Georgian government has been slow to tighten quality and safety regulations, concentrating instead on stimulating production.
Officials in Tbilisi counter that relevant food safety legislation is in the making, but that now the focus is on the domestic front. Most Georgian farms are too small in size, poorly organized and suffer from a lack of mechanized equipment. Thus, many farms are unable to move beyond subsistence farming and produce enough for export.
To encourage consolidation, the government last year launched a crash program, dubbed 100 New Enterprises, which was meant to attract capital to agribusiness and promote industrialization. Under the program, 100 parcels of state-owned land totaling 150,000 hectares were offered for sale at an eye-popping 80 percent discount. The plots, which are not bigger than 2,000 hectares, must be used for agricultural purposes. To date, more than 20 bids for the land plots have been approved, the agriculture ministry states.
Meanwhile, the government plans to spend over $50 million (70 million lari) in 2008 to replace rakes and spades with tractors and other machinery. Farmers can rent equipment from the government (a tractor goes for 15 lari – about $10.72 – per hectare) and also have an option to purchase it on a prorated basis with no interest applied.
“It all comes down to economies of scale,” commented Nika Grdzelidze, general director of AgVantage, a project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development that works to help Georgian food producers, processors and marketers compete in international markets. “Of 400,000 farmers, merely 4,000 own more than four hectares of land. … As a result, supply is very small and fragmented.”
Despite the troubles in the agricultural sector, Tbilisi is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU within the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy. An agreement that would restrict food product sales based on their official provenance – and not allow substitutes from third countries – is slated to be signed by Brussels and Tbilisi by the end of the year. But the government has yet to table a draft law on the legislative and administrative changes required for establishing EU-compliant food standards.
Further incentive could come from an administrative measure within the EU itself. With food prices increasing worldwide, the European Commission recently called for scrapping some safety rules to give outside countries easier trade access to the EU. The consent of all 27 member-states is required for the decision to enter force, however.
While the decision would be a welcome change for Georgian farmers, Ambassador Zaldastanishvili argues that an effective EU-compliant food safety system remains the key to the European market. “Simplifying regulations will without doubt make it easier for Georgian exporters to bring produce to the European market. … [But] the Georgian side has a long way to go to establish European standards,” he said.
Source: Eurasianet.Org, July 2008
www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav072308a.shtml
Public TV to Reduce News
July 23, 2008
The Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) is to decrease the number of news bulletins from four to three starting in autumn.
“The share of airtime allocated for news coverage will be reduced,” Levan Gakheladze, chairman of GPB board of trustees, said in an interview with the RFE/RL Georgian Service on July 23. “There will be a total of three news bulletins per day; this is caused by an objective reality; Georgia is a small country and not many things are happening that would require, let’s say, an hourly news bulletin.”
Currently the GPB airs four news bulletins a day: at noon, 3pm and 6pm, and the main news bulletin at 8pm. Until recently, it had hourly news bulletins.
Gakheladze also said that the station planned to launch political and social talk-shows, as well as investigative programmes and a series dedicated to human rights.
In June the GPB closed down a weekly political programme, Shvidi Dge (Seven Days). Gakheladze said it had happened because of a near zero rating.
Source: Civil.Ge Online Magazine, July 2008