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bne April 2019 Eurasia I 51
an iceberg”. Names on the list include Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, American Georgian Alloys, Terabank, KazTransGas, InterRao, City Park, Batumi Port, Optical Systems Inc, Samih Habib Investments, Caucasus I Fund and Anka Food Switzerland.
It is Asly who has also very publicly posed the big question of who will end up finishing the potentially very lucrative Anaklia port project. TBC bank co-found- er and shareholder Mamuka Khazaradze remains engaged in trying to clear his name and that of his bank in the wake of the announced laundering investigation and plenty of business people in Georgia would wager that the tycoon sometimes seen as the de facto leader of Georgia, the country’s richest person Bidzina Ivanishvili, might not too long from now be boasting a stake in Anaklia.
Asly, a Lebanese businessman based in Georgia, has constantly taken a neutral position on the country’s politics. He has noted that if Khazaradze finds himself discredited by the suspect lending
affair – and he is fiercely protesting his innocence, claiming a plot against him – he might become unable to receive funds from donors.
Asly described the events surround-
ing TBC Bank as “an assault on busi- ness” and said that similar scenarios were characteristic of former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze's rule. “There is a more general trend in Geor- gia against foreign investors,” he added.
"In 2018, direct foreign investment was 25% less than in 2017 and this was the result of government policies. Bidzina Ivanishvili does not want to see foreign investors. He does not want competition. It's very dangerous for the country. Only Bidzina Ivanishvili's friends come here," Asly said to journalists.
TBC’s Anaklia performance criticised
In the same week that Asly raised his concerns, Georgian authorities criti- cised TBC’s performance in completing the Anaklia port project. Such criticism could well be followed by attempts of the authorities to “help” the project by direct involvement.
Irakli Garibashvili, political secretary of the ruling party led by ex-PM Ivanish- vili, Georgian Dream, said that “when it comes to Anaklia Port, the first question I have is – three years have passed, as
I remember they [TBC Holding] won the tender in 2016. Why is the timeline not respected, why is the port not being
the individual statements, which we have heard from the businessmen, should not be left without a response from Georgian Dream. If the ‘Dream’ does not react to their statements, the principle that can be seen as a large rock rolling down from the mountain will
be initiated. If the image of the ‘Dream’
“Asly described the events surrounding TBC Bank as “an assault on business””
built? Was there some problem with getting the financing on time? Or maybe simply it was not a bankable project. I do not know, experts shall look into that. [...] Three years have passed, is the port built? I am asking, is it built? No.”
After the ICC released its list of impacted companies, Batumi Oil terminal, controlled by Kazakh state company KazMunayGas, put out its own comment, defending the business climate in Georgia.
The country's business climate, legis- lation, liberal tax policy and range of transparent communication formats for addressing public agencies can definitely be seen as creating a favourable environ- ment for business, according to Batumi Oil Terminal director General Murat Jimadilaev, as quoted by IPN.
Independent business and political environment analyst Khatuna Lagazidze remarked that one of the main achieve- ments of Georgian Dream in power was that business enjoyed freedom – but
she stressed that if it does not last, “the ‘Dream’ will end”.
According to Lagazidze, the fact that business people in Georgia were openly speaking about their difficulties and were expressing their complaints about the government indicated that there was not a situation in the country that could be assessed as amounting to massive pressure on business.
Respond or face “large rock rolling down mountain”
Lagazidze called on the government to respond to the recent disquiet expressed by the business representatives. "I think
– business breathing freely under its power – disappears, the ‘Dream’ will also be finished,” she said.
More criticism related to poor gover- nance in Georgia has been expressed recently.
“The greatest threat to countries like Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine lies
in their own poor governance and abuse of informal power,” a comment piece published in Politico in February observed.
“These days, the biggest issue in Georgia isn’t threats from Moscow; it’s the politi- cal foul play that risks jeopardizing its biggest infrastructure project in years:
a deep-water port at Anaklia on the Black Sea coast,” Thomas de Waal,
a senior associate at Carnegie Europe, wrote in the article.
Georgia lost ground in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2018. To some critics, it currently comes across as a de facto one-party state controlled by the Georgian Dream party of oligarch Ivanishvili. Yet compared to other post-Soviet countries in Eastern Europe, it’s doing relatively well.
The country still has checks and bal- ances, de Waal conceded in his piece. Nongovernmental organisations and parliamentarians lately won the first round of the latest row over the way the country is governed. Ten candidates for the Supreme Court with dubious reputations were forced to withdraw their candidacies after a major public backlash against them.
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