Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili held several top level bilateral meetings with foreign leaders and met with representatives of large corporations on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The Georgian delegation, led by the Prime Minister and including Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze and Economy Minister Giorgi Gakharia, met with the Swiss President Doris Leuthard on January 20, on the final day of the two-day visit.
The parties talked on the major topics of Georgian-Swiss relations. “Special attention was paid to the bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade and economy, tourism, and education, and the importance of sharing Switzerland’s experience in developing mountainous regions,” Kvirikashvili’s office reported.
“We see Georgia as a stabilizing force in the region,” President Leuthard was quoted as saying by the Georgian PM’s office.
The sides also touched upon the state of the Georgian-Russian relations and the situation in Georgia’s occupied territories. The Prime Minister expressed gratitude for Switzerland’s support to Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and for “mediation” with Russia, according to Kvirikashvili’s office.
At the World Economic Forum, Giorgi Kvirikashvili met with representatives of several large corporations, including Microsoft, British Petroleum and Adecco Group, and emphasized on Georgia’s business-friendly environment in talks with them.
“We had meetings with service companies, manufacturers, and many [of them] are already taking interest in Georgia. We believe that we will soon have tangible results," the Prime Minister told the press before departing for Georgia and added that Georgia has “a very good chance” of becoming the regional center of operations for many companies, which “has been pointed out by everyone at the meetings.”
As part of the visit, Prime Minister Kvirikashvili also met with EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti. Chakrabarti, who said that Georgia’s relations with EBRD are “in extremely good health,” expressed hope that the institution will be able to invest “nearly 300 million euro” to Georgia in 2017.
He also commended Georgia for its progress on reforms. “The Investors Council, which is chaired by the Prime Minister, is doing very well. The work on PPPs [Public-Private Partnerships] is going well. The work to develop the Competition Agency is going well, and the Energy Efficiency Action Plan, so in all these areas the relationship between Georgia and EBRD is in extremely good health,” Suma Chakrabarti stated.
During his visit, Giorgi Kvirikashvili also held talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as well as his Serbian and Croatian counterparts, Aleksandar Vučić amd Andrej Plenković, respectively, and discussed bilateral relations.