2021-12-22
Dear Friends, Esteemed Ambassadors! Representatives of our diplomatic corps, let me greet you all!
First of all, let me thank you for your performance and contribution in a number of successful achievements of Georgia and its foreign policy.
This day is very important for us all. I wish to thank David Zalkaliani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and each one of you, engaged in making our country stronger. This virtual meeting of ours evidences that we are truly living in a much altered reality due to the global pandemic. We take into account this reality and acknowledge with sadness that we failed to have an opportunity of a meeting in person.
Naturally, we have had a very difficult period as the pandemic has lasted two years and you had to inter alia work on locating and delivering the vaccines and medical equipment for our citizens, on organising ad-hoc flights for Georgians stationed in various corners of the world and on all the rest related to our citizens and our country. Your support, your engagement was vital and in most cases decisive for our country, businesses and citizens. You demonstrated high-calibre professionalism in these difficult conditions, thereby serving as an example of solidarity and successful cooperation to the entire international community. You truly managed to achieve the impossible and I wish to once again express gratitude to all of you on behalf of our government and from me personally. I thank the Minister and each one of you.
Of course, this immense work together with our partners, your engagement and dedication is even more important today than has ever been before. Only with such engagement and common effort can we once and for all curb this pandemic, combat it and continue a normal course of life.
Pandemic has demonstrated to us all the global challenges of international relations in the realm of security, economics and healthcare. I am confident that we will successfully overcome all the difficulties on the chosen path and by staying committed to values, together with our friends and partners to lead our country and our people to a peaceful end.
I wish to refer to the year in a few words. It was quite a busy and difficult year, however I believe that irrespective of these challenges and problems, we have all had a rather successful year and it culminated in the exemplary elections. Local elections held on October 2, 2021 once again confirmed that our country is loyal to the democratic reforms and European path, NATO path and it is very important. Our population one again demonstrated that nobody wants disorder. On the contrary, our goal is to have a long-lasting peace, stability and development, so that every one of us focuses our energy and efforts on the advancement, prosperity to our people and - what is most important - unification of our country.
We should now intensify our democratic reforms and position our country stronger on the international arena as a country of democratic development with a potential of financial, business and transit hub in the region. We should once again introduce our country to our friends and the entire world.
6th Eastern Partnership Summit as a most important event towards European integration. It was where a new and ambitious agenda was developed, short- and medium-term goals were defined and a new regional investment plan of the EU was presented for implementation.
Establishment of the Associated Trio this year was also important, as Georgia did not spare an effort along with other members of the initiative to advance on the path of political, economic or sectoral integration with the EU, thereby identifying new opportunities. Common goal of our countries is to join the EU. I am confident that we will succeed in realising our plans with a joint effort in the nearest future. Naturally, challenges are plenty, however we will by all means overcome them together with a consistent and prudent policy to reach our common goal.
I wish to briefly refer to our cooperation with NATO. You may well be aware that I have had a meeting with the Secretary General of NATO with the Minister of Foreign Affairs being present. Naturally, we were interested to get their reassurance against the background of the recent developments to make sure that their position is firm as is our position. Government and - what is most important - the people of Georgia are solid and unwavering in their position. It is the strong will of the Georgian people to become a member state of NATO. It is our main idea, aim and goal. We continue to use a full spectrum of political and practical cooperation mechanisms with NATO. On the grounds of achievements made in previous years, we resumed the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP). Today it is more dynamic and tailored to our common national priorities, needs and joint security goals.
In addition, the Alliance is paying an unprecedented attention to boosting the Black Sea Security, which essentially envisages strengthening and solidifying the defence capability of our country and security of the entire region.
I particularly note the contribution made by Georgia in the operations carried under the aegis of NATO and EU. We are proud of our servicemen, our soldiers. We are proud of the international recognition that we deserved for the unprecedented, one of the largest support of the transit movement and evacuation of US forces and allies. Role of our country in this was of course very significant.
I wish to highlight the significance of the visit paid to Georgia by Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense several months ago. It may be deemed as a start of a new stage of our cooperation. New Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was concluded by defence institutions of the two countries. It is branded as Georgia Defense and Deterrence Enhancement Initiative. Document defines the future stages and programs of cooperation. This important format supports the development of the defence forces and security systems of Georgia in the nearest future. It may be said boldly that US-Georgia relations in the defence and security dimension have advanced to an essentially new level.
Of course, we are not forgetting about our main and grand dream and goal of regaining the territorial integrity and de-occupation of our country. We are not loosening our focus, not even for a second. Our common effort and international support mobilised by you, dear ambassadors, has resulted in a very effective policy of non-recognition. This process has been intensified both within the region and at the international arena - including at the highest level. That is why, your efforts towards this end deserves a very high acknowledgement and I once again thank you for this as well. Your competent performance has resulted in the isolation of the aggressive policy of Russia at the international arena and maximum protection of interests pursued by our country, maximum protection of our positions, support solicited and boosted on the peace initiative of Georgia from strategic partners of our country.
Establishment of a long-term peace in the region is most important to us. We closely follow the post-war development of events in Nagorno Karabakh. Process is naturally very interesting to us. I have very good friendly relations with leaders of both countries - President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan. You may well be aware that I have had official meetings four times this year: I visited Azerbaijan and Armenia twice each. The Armenian Prime Minister visited Georgia twice as well. I have had a number of interactions with leaders of both countries, including the phone conversations. I had a very successful meeting in Turkey as well. President Erdogan welcomed us at the highest level and we made very effective steps towards this end as well. We offered an informal regional platform of dialogue in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) to our neighbours. With close cooperation with our strategic partner, we created a very important precedent in summer and mediated between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I believe that we led them to a very important agreement and thus created a significant precedent in the region. We demonstrated to the region, neighbours and international community, USA and EU that Georgia can play a key role in reaching a long-term peace and stability in the region. I had a conversation about it with Charles Michel, President of the European Council in Brussels. I also spoke about it from the UN rostrum, when I announced my Peaceful Neighbourhood Initiative. It is aimed at developing a dialogue and building trust between our neighbours and at strengthening and promoting the role of mediator that could be played by Georgia.
I wish to briefly note about the engagement of Georgia in the Climate Change Conference of the United Nations (COP26). Positioning our country in the sustainable development and environmental protection is one of the priorities of our country and we will be further intensifying our efforts towards this end.
We highly value our interaction with neighbours and balanced policy in the region, which has a tremendous importance, inter alia for the stability and security of our country. I have had a number of visits to Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Of course, it is important to deepen our relationship with our strategic partners - USA, EU member states and other nations that are key partners of our country.
It is also known to you that I will be paying an Official Visit to the United Arab Emirates next week to participate in Expo-2020. It was postponed for a year due to the pandemic and Georgia will be presented with dignity this time. We will have very interesting, important meetings inter alia with businesses at the World Fair. Our main goal is to attract more investments to our country.
Pandemic has had a very negative, adverse impact on the economic stability of countries worldwide. Our government is fully aware of this challenge and has responded to it with a number of significant steps made forward.
Since my appointment to the position of the Prime Minister of Georgia, my main attention and focus has been on the economic recovery, along with domestic political affairs and foreign policy. I believe that very effective and - what is most important - fruitful steps have been made towards this end together with our team and that is why we managed to timely recover our economy in an unprecedentedly efficient manner, thereby incentivizing and diversifying it as our main goal. After an economic decline in previous years, monthly economic growth has been witnessed as a positive trend since March. We have a double-digit economic growth indicator. This year, we will be reaching an annual double-digit indicator of economic growth, which is unprecedented not only in the region, but in Europe as well - after Ireland - which is truly important. Our main goal is to grow and develop our economy, so that progress is felt by every citizen of our country. Main challenge remains poverty and unemployment. We will be presenting a very important vision of ours in the coming weeks and it will be my main dream, goal and idea.
Under my instructions, we are already working on designing a new socio-economic policy, which will be made public soon. It is aimed at making very effective and efficient, productive steps. We also have very important plans related to the creation of new employment opportunities, adjustment of social policy, which is currently catastrophic and devastating, as we are simply losing our generations. People got used to unemployment and got victimised in real sense by this wrong, unhealthy social policy. It should change. I started to openly talk about it. Restriction of online casinos is also related to this goal. I wish to thank our Parliament and MPs as a draft law was passed with a third hearing in an accelerated manner today. Online casinos engage hundreds and thousands of people, who need to be shifted to other engagements. For your information, let me say that socially vulnerable people spent 1.5 billion on gambling. These are the socially vulnerable people, who got engaged in gambling because they had nothing else to do, failed to get employed and because the system simply scared them. They failed to work out of fear of losing social allowances. Malpractices like online casinos, gambling, drug addiction and others are their current occupation. One of our main directions will be reduction of prices on medication. We are actively working on this and expect to have a quick impact ultimately in the nearest 1-2 months. Afterwards, we should continue with our very important work.
Under my instructions, we already developed 10-year plans and this is not a template promise. These are very detailed, specific and elaborated plans, which were designed by each line ministry. Every public institution worked in a very productive manner during the past 6 months and came up with long-term sectoral development plans broken down by annual specific vision statements. Our common goal should be progress to be reached by 2030 and even before that. Of course, we will advance every year. We should at least double our economy. Our main challenge and main difficulty to be overcome - which was failed by previous governments - is to overcome poverty and unemployment. It is our main ambition, our main motivation and we should deliver this. More jobs and greater prosperity needs to exist and stability with a long-term peace is most essential for this. It is ensured and guaranteed in the conditions of our rule.
One of the interesting steps made towards this end is that I contracted one of the largest companies - The Rotschild. It is the second financial group in the world and first in Europe. One of its initiatives is to gradually transform Georgia and to position it as the Luxemburg of the East. It was one of their ideas and suggestions. It is also intended to transform the country and to position it as a financial hub of the region. We will also work towards attracting strategic investors and inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI), new financial resources into the country.
Our common interest should be geared towards attracting investments and intensifying our work with countries of origin in bilateral formats and with our strategic partners - USA, UK, EU and Asian countries. That is why, we need more and closer contacts to be established with businesses, existing ones to be used thoroughly and more investments to be solicited for more employment opportunities and greater prosperity of our population. We need to further promote Georgia and its success story. We can do it and we have a lot to say. We have truly achieved a lot. We may be proud of our progress, irrespective of the challenges that are faced in the region and our country - occupation, which may be one of the barriers for investors, Nevertheless, our pragmatic, prudent and foreseeable policy will lead to the overcoming of this psychological barrier as well and we will succeed in convincing investors that Georgia is a secure country, that we have a lot of interesting areas to invest and seek interest of investors.
More trade agreements are needed and more direct flights with advanced economies to ultimately have a positive impact on our economy, increased employment opportunities and improved quality of life for our citizens.
Presence of Georgia in countries of the world has a key role in the interaction with our compatriots currently living overseas- our diaspora. We are working on a number of ideas related to our diaspora. We need to intensify our work towards this end in general. Greater and stronger coordination is required to use the full potential and resources of the diaspora. It is an interesting and essential dimension. That is why we need to increase our care towards them. More support is required for our diaspora. We need to assist everyone willing to return to Georgia.
Once again, I wish to thank you for your work and professionalism, dedication and devotion. Your performance leads to the protection of national interests of Georgia overseas at a high level, effective interaction with partners and development of future directions.
Once again, thank you for everything. I wish you every success and most productive conference! Wishing you a Happy New Year and great success ahead!