2018-07-30
Good Evening!
When presenting the Government Program at the Plenary Session of the Parliament we stated that our country has two treasures - our society, i.e. our people and our nature.
Today, I will be presenting the Government Vision on the Policy for the Protection of Environment, i.e. Strategy of Green Economy. Implementation of this policy is our primary task in the country and respectively, it is reflected in the Government Program, which I spoke about at the Parliament and you may remember that I had two opportunities to do it.
You all know that environmental problems are not exclusive to our country and serve as one of the most pressing challenges of the entire world. Unfortunately, policy pursued by Georgia in recent decades towards environment was completely unacceptable and led to very grave results.
Main focus of the Green Policy is to protect the environment with an aim of making the ecology of the country healthier and maintaining the natural resources for future generations. Green Policy of our Government as an ideology is based on the life and welfare of humans, as quality of environment and rational use of natural resources are closely related to the public safety and health.
You may well be aware that our European friends are making rather significant and fundamental steps towards this end. Harmonization to be evidenced in a greater approximation of our country to Europe, is a significant pre-requisite for benefiting from this very important opportunities and for starting to make active steps towards this end.
We should have two priorities in this direction. First and foremost is to eradicate the hardest legacy, which we inherited and second of all to use this unique wealth of our country to achieve the results in the nearest future that will facilitate the positioning of our country with its green economy.
I believe that this is a long-term vision of development for our country and moreover, I would say that this is a new rule of life, implying that we safeguard and care about our environment. At the same time, we gather the knowledge, share responsibility and get fresh, clean water and quality food air as a result. Ultimately, we end up getting healthy environment and strong, competitive economy.
We need to confess that steps made over years not within our common strategy have sadly backfired negatively. Hence, all the measures that will be made through our Environmental Policy - both at central and municipal levels - will be part of a common strategy and vision.
Respectively, we will gradually tighten the environmental standards and will get approximated to the European ones.
You may well be aware that harmonization of our legislation with EU Directives has been launched and is progressing successfully. Nevertheless, we need to make more vivid and specific steps in the coming years to prevent the air, soil and water pollution, ensure sustainable development of waste management, bio diversity, eco systems and natural resources.
We have a particularly challenging situation towards this end in urban areas. This issue is more pressing in large cities. Hence, it is very important to develop effective programs for the protection of atmospheric air in urban areas.
Each public institution, as well as private sector, will have specific obligations and recommendations to improve the quality of atmospheric air in the country as soon as possible.
I wish to tell you that in a few days, but more specifically from August 1, we will be introducing a European standard of air quality in the country. It will enable us to inspect the air quality nationwide by applying the European standards. Currently available modern automated monitoring chain in the country enables us to inspect the air quality with European standards. Requirements of the Association Agreement (AA) between the European Union (EU) and Georgia will thus be met by the introduction of European standards of air quality inspection. It is essential to develop a web portal in parallel with the introduction of European standards of air quality monitoring, which will constantly provide information to general public on the quality of air at specific locations. Also, monitoring network of air quality management will also be extended to enable us a proper planning of all the essential measures for the improvement of air quality in various cities of the country.
At the same time, you may well be aware that it was my initiative to institutionalize an Environmental Ombudsman, thus being yet another very important establishment to make the communication very effective, directly interact and get feedback of our society and make the Government further more efficient and effective in addressing environmental issues.
Also, one of its most important components will be the sustainable transport policy. Our priority is to gradually substitute the outdated and depreciated pool of public transport, which will primarily apply to the capital city.
A few days ago, we presented this policy together with Kakhi Kaladze, Mayor of Tbilisi and you may well be aware that so called yellow busses will be entirely substituted in 2018-2019. At the same time, we will be gradually launching a process of electric buss imports. Our goal is to make the public transport most affordable and comfortable for passenger transportation. Our policy implies not only the import of new vehicles, but also development of road infrastructure. In parallel with the public transportation oriented at comfortable and quick mobility, we will by all means develop the bike lanes and infrastructure for the disabled and pedestrians.
At the same time, it is essential to consider environmental aspects in spatial and urban planning of municipalities, which will be paid special attention from central and local authorities.
Periodic technical inspection reform of motorcars was launched from January 1, 2018, which will apply to all types of vehicles from the end of 2019.
It will facilitate the improvement of environmental impact, as well as road safety. One of the key factors of the referred reform was to introduce a technical inspection of vehicles in the prism of environmental impact. Requirements will further tighten within the relevant initiatives to inspect the exhaust fumes.
Also, I wish to let you know that threshold of hazardous substances in petrol and diesel fuels will comply with European standards. We have increased the standard for petrol fuel, however this policy should by all means apply to diesel fuel as well. You may well agree that consumption of diesel fuel is also quite high in Georgia. Hence, our proposal is to move to a new standard from October 1, 2018; increase our requirements to Euro 4, while Euro 5 will be institutionalized in 2020. It means that content of sulphur in the imported fuel will be thus reduced 10-fold.
Also, introduction of technical inspection for all and any type of vehicles will greatly facilitate the sharp reduction of air pollution caused by those operating with diesel fuel.
In addition, we intend to introduce such taxation regime for imported vehicles that will give advantage to eco-friendly cars, including the light and low cubage vehicles. Customs duties and clearance costs will increase for high cubage cars to incentivize the import of more hybrid and electric cars to Georgia.
By international comparison, number of high cubage vehicles in Georgia is indeed very high. For your reference, let me say that cars with high capacity engines consuming over 3.5 liters of fuel are about 10% of total number of cars in the country, which exceeds the comparable indicator of Europe by several times. The announced initiative will further increase the difference between the cost of cars and we believe that in the coming years we will manage to considerably change the structure of traffic in the country, thus getting a greater number of cars that comply with requirements practiced in EU member states. Unfortunately, people still import cars of Euro 1, Euro 2 and Euro 3 types in Georgia. It is indeed a huge problem for our eco system. We believe that by introducing this policy we will significantly change this notorious trend.
In line with the proposed change, vehicles with original registration within the territory of Georgia from October 1, 2018 will need to undergo periodic technical inspection as a compulsory measure within 30 days from the date of registration.
You may well be aware that actually 90% of vehicles imported to Georgia have no proper system of catalytic converters, thus being very hazardous and related to the technical performance of the vehicle and environmental impact at the same time. Hence, it will be one of the key preconditions for granting a relevant document of technical inspection to a vehicle. Otherwise imported cars will not gain inspection proofs.
We will shortly introduce an integrated environmental permit system, which will oblige enterprises to substitute their technological cycles with modern technologies in the most efficient timeframe. Eco-marking tool needs to be introduced to incentivize the green initiatives, which implies the facilitation of environmentally clean technologies in the production and manufacturing and support of green economy at large.
When we talk about Green Economy, it is very important to consider the policy, which will be introduced in the sector of agriculture. I announced that we will be significantly changing our priorities in this area. As noted at multiple occasions, I will never agree to the opinion that agriculture has no prospects in Georgia. Many opponents are saying that irrespective of the wide-scale investments in the sector, there is still no breakthrough. Friends, we need to distinguish industry of agriculture from subsistence agriculture. Sadly, what we and our opponents refer to is not an industry of agriculture, but rather subsistence agriculture. This is indeed one of the sources of poverty in the country. Majority of rural population in our country is forced to be engaged in subsistence agriculture versus an industry of agriculture. They produce goods and harvest crops for the household consumption. Of course we will find it hard to combat poverty in the country with this approach. Hence, one of the key aspects of our Green Economy will be the sector of agriculture. Georgia will soon become a country of very high quality, eco-friendly, so called bio producer of goods. We have already started to work towards this end. You may well be aware that we have introduced a VAT exemption on a certain group of natural products, however we have a more ambitious plan and will be presenting our policy in autumn. It will imply one of the lowest tax rates in the sector of agriculture. We will focus on the bio clean, eco-friendly production. My personal goal is to gradually minimize the applicable tax rates and ultimately make the sector fully exempt from taxes, thus leading to a bio clean production in Georgia.
I wish to hereby touch upon the policy of energy efficiency. Georgia has a lot of challenges in this direction also. However, I believe that this is an opportunity, rather than anything else. Our most important priority will be to define and implement a relevant policy for proper management of optimization of energy consumption in energy-intensive sectors of economy; generation, transmission and consumption of energy at large. If we take the western European example, we may say that about 20% of resources are available to considerably improve energy efficiency in the country.
Our goal is and special attention will be paid to the creation of new, green, recreation areas in the cities; to the maintenance and upgrade of the existing ones. At the same time, very important investments will be made to protected areas and development of all natural and man-made artificial eco systems. What is most important, our absolute priority will be to develop forests for recreation and tourism purposes.
It is everyone's duty and goal to think about green surface. Particularly important is the care about forests. You all know that we have a very difficult situation in this regard. Recent occurrences may be referred as being at the edge of environmental disaster in many regions of the country. One of the most pressing global challenges is the climate change and on the background of such dilemmas throughout the world this situation in forests of Georgia seems a greater burden. Hence, our policy in the referred field will be very fundamental and consistent. Forest is a wealth of Georgia and we should take a great care and develop it. I understand it well that on the background of current poverty, it is very difficult to radically refuse to the use of forest resources in various directions, however this is not an argument for keeping away from fundamental measures in this area.
We announced a very vital initiative at the past Executive Government Meeting, according to which import of timber will be incentivized in Georgia. At the same time, we will restrict the export of logs and boards from Georgia. This is not a value added area of the economy that might create additional jobs. No, it only destroys our core wealth - size and magnitude of forests in Georgia. We will facilitate the policy, which will create jobs in the country and will develop high value sectors in the economy. At the same time, we will make very important steps in the forest protection policy to engage the local population in the process of forest management. These jobs are very important for rural population and trust me, number of such jobs will be sufficient to make the locals earn a stable income.
I wish to touch upon the prospects witnessed by us towards the implementation of Green Strategy. In the opinion of many leading economists, green economy has the highest prospects of capitalization in the 21st century. It is a huge opportunity for our small economy, however we need to be consistent in applying it. Believe me, as a result of this reform we will achieve an utterly unique environment in Georgia and this capitalization will apply to any direction. It means that many properties in the country will gain a higher value. Our citizens that own land plots, apartments or private houses in the country will become owners of assets with higher value. It means that agriculture produce of Georgia will become more competitive and we will manage to absorb the unique possibilities offered by Free Trade Regimes both with China and EU member states.
What is most important, it will be a vital pre-requisite together with a fundamental reform of the education sector to ensure the paramount goal - to transform Georgia into an advanced economy with genuine European institutions, thus leaving no other alternative to our Abkhaz and Ossetian citizens but to jointly build a strong and European Georgia.
Thank you very much for your attention!