Page 40 - bne IntelliNews Georgia country report October 2017

did not give him a reason why he was being investigated.
A letter leaked to Studio Monitor dated March 2015 appears to indicate that the Georgian agriculture ministry bent the law in order to allow Victoria LLC to keep sheep for a shorter period of time in quarantine than the legally-mandated six-month period after importing them from Armenia and before selling them to customers in Iran, Turkey and Arab countries. In the letter, Victoria LLC asked the ministry to shorten the quarantine period to one month in order for it to meet the growing demand from its customers. The National Food Agency granted the company its request, saying that it was "in the best interests of the country", though the law was never changed.
The country's new agriculture minister, Levan Davitashvili, vowed in June to tighten import and quarantine rules so that no sheep from other countries could be sold as Georgian-born, the report concluded.
9.1.4 Construction & Real estate sector news
The Trump Organisation has decided to scrap a Trump-branded real estate development venture in the Georgian beach resort of Batumi, it confirmed in a January 6 statement. The $250mn, 47-storey property is being developed by Georgia's Silk Road Group. President-elect Donald Trump himself signed the licensing agreement for the building in 2011.
The decision to withdraw from involvement in the Batumi development comes following the holding's December announcement that it w ould scrap a similar development venture in neighbouring Azerbaijan, and subsequent to Alan Garten, the organisation's general counsel, indicating that the group was set to make the same move in Georgia.
The organisation has sought to distance itself from some of its more controversial partnerships in countries like Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan in recent months, to protect the incoming president against criticism over possible conflicts of interest and for having selected foreign partners suspected of corruption.
“[The parties] jointly announce their decision to formally end the development of Trump Tower, Batumi, ... under the licence agreement executed in March 2011,” read the statement on the Georgian cancellation.
Silk Road Group, a local conglomerate comprising of transport, telecommunications, banking and real estate operations, would continue to develop the building without the Trump franchise, the statement added.
9.1.5 Tourism sector news
The growth in hotel guests and hotel-like accommodation in Georgia outpaced the growth in tourism twofold in 2016, consultancy Galt & Taggart wrote in a report on September 15. Thus, the number of tourists grew by 19.2% y/y to 2.7mn in 2016, while the number of hotel guests grew by 42.8% y/y to 1.7mn.
Tourism is one of Georgia's drivers for economic growth. The growing number of tourists has prompted a boost in construction activity, services, employment
40 GEORGIA Country Report October 2017 www.intellinews.com