2021-06-18
The World Bank stands ready to advise the Government of Georgia on developing 10-Year Strategic Plans. It was announced by Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia at a Joint Press Briefing held with Anna Bjerde, Vice President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region today.
According to the Head of Government of Georgia, the total portfolio of the World Bank in Georgia is 2.7 billion USD, which has been allocated over years for financing around 70 projects implemented in various sectors of the economy.
"I welcome our distinguished guest - Anna Bjerde, Vice President of the World Bank - who is visiting Georgia today. I have had a productive meeting with Anna, discussing the utterly successful cooperation that Georgia has with the World Bank. We reviewed our projects, the most significant portfolio that the World Bank is managing in our country. I wish to remind you that the total volume of the exposure is 2.7 billion USD, which has been allocated over years for the financing of around 70 projects in various sectors of the economy. Currently, the value of the 13 active projects of the World Bank amounts to about a billion USD, which is a significant contribution to the economy of our country. I wish to note with gratitude the engagement of the World Bank in almost every direction, including the infrastructure, agriculture, education. We talked about the needs of vocational education and more efforts to be channeled towards this end. Also, we discussed energy, digital technologies that we are jointly working and cooperating on. We shared our vision with Anna on the development of short- and long-term plans. Government has been actively working in recent months towards this end. We already have the first draft of the document, which will be made available inter alia to our most successful donor - the World Bank - and I asked her to actively get engaged in this process so that we get more advice and consultations towards this end to define directions of all sectors - policy directions of our Government - with greater precision. It applies to the development of 10-Year Strategic Plans and I received a positive response from Anna on this, noting that the World Bank stands ready to provide advice to the Government inter alia towards this end" stated Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia.
According to the Head of Government of Georgia, the economic outcome of the pandemic has been discussed with the visiting Vice President of the World Bank. Irakli Garibashvili expressed his gratitude to Anna Bjerde for the support provided in the vaccination process.
"You may well be aware that the World Bank was one of the main donors during the pandemic and remains to be a significant partner in this process. We are actively supported by the World Bank in the vaccination process, in the acquisition of vaccines and I wish to publicly thank the World Bank for this. We have successfully negotiated directly with the manufacturers - Pfizer and others - and received vaccines from the COVAX platform as well - AstraZeneca, first lot of Pfizer. We are now expecting vaccines of Chinese manufacturing, which are authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and we are working successfully towards this end. Thus, we once again summarized a wide range and area of successful cooperation over years. Once again I wish to express my gratitude to Anna" concluded Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia.
According to Anna Bjerde, Vice President of the World Bank, interest in participation is great towards the development of a new strategy initiated by the Government of Georgia.
"We exchanged views with the Prime Minister on the future. We very much look forward to working on a new development strategy for the country. We really look forward to engaging in the reforms that the Government would like to pursue. I should mention that for us in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, Georgia has always been a strong reformer and we look forward to Georgia returning to its reform agenda notwithstanding the COVID short-term crisis. And we very much look forward to supporting areas that we see very important: digitalization (Georgia has made a great progress towards this end, as we are already supporting this goal with a project, which is very close to my heart - Log-in Georgia - which aims to boost the internet access in rural areas, as well as in urban areas. We consider high-speed broadband internet access to be very important, but we also believe that digitalization will broadly need to be amplified" noted Anna Bjerde, ECA Vice President of the World Bank.
According to the visiting official, Georgia performed well from the dawn of the pandemic and all the essential measures were taken. She believes that Georgia was well-prepared for the pandemic both in terms of health system and economic dimension.
"It is a pleasure to be back in Georgia. I was here last in 2015 and of course many things have changed since. Of course, we are thinking very much in this light of the past year - 2020 - a very difficult year for the whole world, including Georgia. I'd like to start by commending Georgia for the strong response to the pandemic early on. Many measures were taken to prepare for the pandemic from the health sector point of view, but also economically, because the support was given to households and families, as it was very helpful as a cushion for some of the impact. This crisis started as a health crisis, but quickly manifested into an economic crisis. The World Bank was really happy to be asked to come in early to support the country. Georgia was actually one of the first countries that asked for support - for an emergency facility - and we have just recently provided some additional resources to also help with the vaccination roll-out. I'd like to commend the Government for taking - what we call - a multipronged approach towards vaccines. We have found that the most successful vaccination roll-out strategies are those that have multiple vaccines, not relying on one channel or one avenue. Because the market is too tight and it is very important to look at the acquisition of vaccines from many different avenues. We look forward to helping in their deployment and roll-out. Country has a target of 60% vaccination by the end of this calendar year and we think it will be a very good level of coverage and we really hope that all people of Georgia will take advantage of these vaccines. In addition to medical and vaccine support, the World Bank has also supported the Government for micro, small and medium enterprises. This is an area where we see a lot of demand in the region from our clients, including Georgia. We are happy to provide that support. This segment of the economy is important to retain and create new jobs" added Anna Bjerde, Vice President of the World Bank.
According to the visiting official, Georgia has an ambitious program and plan both in terms of SOE reform, as well as for the development of competitiveness and dynamic economy. She believes that the World Bank is keenly interested in environment and sustainable development, thereby noting that the response program implemented in Georgia was utterly commendable. IFI has been happily supporting the country and eager to do so in future as well.
Press Service of the Government Administration