MINISTRY OF ECONOMY
AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OF GEORGIA

Candidate for the position of the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, Giorgi Kobulia, at the four committees joint hearing at the Parliament of Georgia, stated that the pension reform scheduled by the Georgian Government complies with the world’s best practice that did bring the positive results.

Giorgi Kobulia talked about the pension reform in details and noted the following: “to say it in simple words, it is clear that we want to increase the savings of the population of Georgia – to help people save more money and to return this money back into the economy. Today we are funding all the projects via the debts and we want to generate such funds in the economy.”

Asked whether the pension reform would have any impact on today’s pensioners, the Giorgi Kobulia said that the pension reform will not have any impact on the present pensioner and they will continue to receive pensions as they did before. “If we want to increase pensions for them, there is only one thing we can do – we should increase economy and attract more money to the country,” – Kobulia stated.

Candidate for the Minister made a comment on the capital market development as well. According to him, the development of the capital market is related to the pension reform since it is a mechanism allowing for capitalization of those funds. “Development of the capital market has other significance - the point is that we also want to create additional mechanisms for attracting money in the economy. That is all that capital market is about – there might be a wishing to invest in business, but not through the banks. There is no such a mechanism for investments in Georgia and is why we should establish funds. That is why we should develop the capital market – this is not a revolution but a component of economic development,” – Giorgi Kobulia explained.