On December 20, the Prime Minister of Georgia Vladimer Gurgenidze arrived in Shida Kartli; he was accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture of Georgia Petre Tsiskarishvili.
Vladimer Gurgenidze started his trip by visiting the Fruit Export-Import LTD and an apple processing refrigerator facility in the village of Berbuki. This is the only company throughout the entire Trans-Caucasian region, where storing fruit in the extra modern refrigerators is possible for one year period. Currently, the company has made an agreement with Ukraine on the export of five thousand tons of apples. Later in the day, Vladimer Gurgenidze visited a fruit processing plant and the Georgian Product LTD where he got interested by the production process of these companies. In Kareli, he dropped at the Georgia LTD and viewed the orchards and a storage facility belonging to a local farmer.
According to Vladimer Gurgenidze's assessment, the process of delivery, processing and realization of fruit has proved successful indeed. - "We have acquainted ourselves with the process of picking, delivery, processing and realization of apples at the background of good harvest that the region has enjoyed this year. Two thirds or 85 tons of the harvested apples have already been delivered, which is a normal indicator by now. It's rather satisfactory that the alternatives in the form of consolidators have emerged. The state will not spare efforts to assist them and therefore, 2.800 million GEL have been allocated as a subsidy to the consolidators and 800.000 GEL from the said amount will go to the consolidators working in the Liakhvi River Gorge. The geography of export is quite vast - the product is being exported to Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan. We welcome the fact of developing production of the concentrates which will enhance demand on apples, will bring about increase of the number of jobs in the region and eventually will yield a new Georgian brand as a result. From producing the concentrates, the Agara plant will move to production of juices. Construction of 10-15 more plants of this type will even cause the deficit of apples in this region, given that setting of such plants is neither difficult nor expensive at all. I am deeply convinced that the day will come, when the demand on this product will increase and planting of new apple gardens will become an urgent necessity", - Vladimer Gurgenidze asserted.
The press center of the Chancellery of the Government of Georgia