Workshop at the Ministry of Economy

Upon request of the Georgian Ministry of Economy, GET Georgia organized a workshop for the employees of the Ministries of Economy and Agriculture, which was conducted on September 14. The workshop was based on the publication of GET Georgia about FDI attraction in Georgia.

The EU-Georgian Free Trade Agreement, which is part of the broader Association Agreement, allows duty-free access for investors from third countries to the EU market under the condition that they establish a sufficiently large share of their production (which is defined for each product by the so-called “rules of origin”) in Georgia. For Georgia, this is an important factor to attract FDIs, which has been analyzed by GET Georgia in detail in several publications.

Policy Study PS/01/2016 “FDI-attraction from non-EU countries: The role of the EU-Georgia DCFTA and tariff rate differentials”

Policy Briefing PB/04/2016 “Potential for FDI-attraction from non-EU countries: The role of the EU-Georgia DCFTA A) Potential driven by tariff differentials”

Policy Briefing PB/05/2016 “Potential for FDI-attraction from non-EU countries: The role of the EU-Georgia DCFTA B) The role of non-tariff barriers for potential source countries”

An important result of this work was a data base, which lists the product-specific differences in import duties to the EU between Georgia and other selected non-EU countries. It also contains further information concerning the rules of origin and nontariff trade barriers. During the workshop 15 employees were trained to use this data base for the attraction of foreign investors. The workshop provided not only technical information concerning the use of the data base and the definitions of duty tariffs on product level, but also dealt with practical questions like “Which information should be used in which form for the attraction of foreign investors in practice?” or “How can relevant product groups and countries with potential interest to invest in Georgia be identified?”

Our competent expert for trade Veronika Movchan moderated the workshop. The conclusions of the workshop were documented in a form of example presentations for investor attraction, which had to be prepared in groups of five participants.