Hadas Ester Meitzad, the Israeli Ambassador in Georgia talked to The Checkpoints. This is the short blitz with the Ambassador on doing business both in Israel and Georgia.
What are the main FAQs you get from the Israeli investors – especially the new ones – about Georgia?
I must say the usual questions. I mean the investor usually cares about the level of stability, how welcoming is the business environment for doing business – I think all investors pretty much come with the same list of questions when they are coming to a new country. We assist them. We sometimes take them to different representatives from the IFIs - be it World Bank or other economic organizations that already have an experience of working here for them in each and every sector to receive the best analysis. Of course, also with the Ministry of Economy here in Georgia.
Are they looking closely how Georgia is doing on its path towards the EU integration with those 12 priorities in mind that would by all means change the business environment to the better as well?
From the Israeli investor standpoint I don’t think this is a main focus. There is probably a difference among European investors and Israeli investors.
What can be done so that not only Israeli investors come to Georgia to do business here but Georgian investors also go to Israel to grow their businesses there?
It is up to the private sector. It has to be profitable. As the government, we will try to remove as many barriers as we can, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the business. It has to develop and it has to decide whether it is profitable to do business in Israel or not for them.
Are you satisfied with trade numbers?
No. But we continue to work on it. But I also want to say that the trade numbers are not telling the whole story, because they are not taking into consideration the amount of money that is coming from tourism – we all know that Israel is pretty much opening the list of non-neighboring countries incoming to Georgia and this is not added to the mutual trade numbers. And there’s other types of investment that do not necessarily fall under the traditional understanding of mutual trade - but still, you know, our job is never to be happy and satisfied to aspire to more.
