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non-technical issues that affected their success”. In May, TAP executives were only talking about launching operations at some point in 2020.
In October last year, Italy’s populist 5-Star Movement backed off from its electoral pledge to stop the construction of TAP. The U-turn sparked a row over broken environmental promises in Italy, but no doubt came as a huge relief to Azerbaijan which would face a mighty headache if the $28bn development of Shah Deniz II was met by the blocking of the gas route to EU markets. 5-Star said it was forced to retreat from scrapping Italy’s commitment to TAP because the country would face contractual penalties of €20bn if it withdrew approval of the infrastructure at this late stage.
Former party sympathisers set fire to the 5-Star flag in the southern Italian town of Melendugno—the planned terminus of TAP’s final leg—in a protest against the decision. 5-Star’s U-turn came after lobbying from figures including former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who has worked as a consultant on TAP since 2014.
Duzyol was also reported as saying TANAP shareholders expected to get $1.45bn in annual income over 15 years.
TANAP’s shareholders are Socar (51%), Turkish company Botas (30%), BP (12%) and Socar Turkey (7%).
9.1.2 Automotive sector news
Georgia’s Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze on April 8 stated that a factory to produce electric vehicles will be built in Kutaisi. The plant will be developed in partnership with China’s Chang’an automaker, and will be used as an export platform for European market.
The capacity of the factory is going to be 40,000 cars per year, 50% of which will be intended for the domestic market and 20,000 will be exported to the EU. "This is a great success. Electric cars manufactured in Georgia will be the main export product on the European market from Georgia. We will make 4 models of electric cars, which will be affordable for all citizens of Georgia”, the PM said.
The country will be able to sell electric cars from 2020.
Kutaisi, a city in west Georgia, is one of the most interesting and beautiful cities in Georgia. It was the capital of Georgia in the middle ages. Kutaisi served as the legislative capital of the country in 2012-2018.
Chang'an is considered to be one of the "Big Four" Chinese automakers. With an output of 3 million units in 2016 it ranked fourth among China's automakers by production volume. The comp[any designs, develops, manufactures, and sells passenger cars under the Chang'an brand and commercial vehicles sold under the Chana brand. It operates joint ventures with Ford (Changan Ford), Groupe PSA (Changan PSA), Mazda (Changan Mazda) and Suzuki (Changan Suzuki) which produce foreign branded passenger cars for the Chinese market.
47 GEORGIA Country Report November 2019 www.intellinews.com
