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TBC Bank Group said on May 13 that its Q1 earnings surged 36.7% to GEL133mn (€43.4mn), the biggest jump it has recorded in seven quarters. Profits were driven by a loan book that grew on the back of a stable economy. FTSE-250-listed TBC, which serves retail, corporate and small and medium sized enterprise customers across the country, said gross loans and advances to customers rose 22.9% to GEL10.37bn (€3.37bn) from last year.
9.0 Industry & Sectors 9.1 Sector news
9.1.1 Oil & gas sector news
Gas extracted from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz-2 Caspian Sea field has reached the Turkish-Greek border on the newly-constructed $8.5bn Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), Azerbaijani media reports said on June 17. Head of the TANAP consortium Saltuk Duzyol has previously said that the pipeline would be ready for commercial gas deliveries by July 1.
TANAP is to connect to the under-construction Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) which will traverse Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before making landfall in Southern Italy.
The inauguration of TANAP took place in Turkey last June. It is to deliver 6bn cubic metres of gas to Turkey and 10bn cm to Europe annually. Shah Deniz-2 gas is fed into it from t he Azerbaijan-to-Georgia-to-Turkey South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) .
Overall, the pipelines are to fulfil the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, which rivals Russia’s TurkStream project which is to deliver gas to Turkey and Bulgaria (and eventually beyond) via Black Sea routes.
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
39 GEORGIA Country Report July 2019 www.intellinews.com