On June 15, at the Chancellery of the Government of Georgia, the Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Noghaideli received John Danilovich, Senior Executive Director of the Millenium Challenge Corporation. The parties made a commentary after the meeting.
Zurab Noghaideli, the Prime Minister of Georgia
I would like to welcome the president of MCC in Georgia. It is our pleasure to host Mr. Danilovich in Tbilisi and it's even more pleasant to acquaint him with all the projects being in implementation in Georgia, with the Mtskheta-Mtianeti gas pipeline rehabilitation project in particular. He traveled to Samtskhe-Javakheti and visited the spots, where the construction of the motorway will be started in near future which will connect Tbilisi with this region. One more time I would like to reiterate that the MCC projects are of utmost significance to us. The cost of the said projects amounts to about 400 million dollars and they will attract the investments of approximately one billion dollars. For instance, the allocations made by MCC for the rehabilitation of the gas pipeline equal to 45 million dollars yet total investments in this project amount to 90 million dollars. In the infrastructure rehabilitation projects, mostly embracing water supply and irrigation systems, the MCC funding will amount to 60 million dollars but the total investment will exceed 300 million dollars. Similarly, the amounts envisaged by MCC for the road rehabilitation will equal to about 100 million dollars, whereas only in Qvemo Qartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti the total investments will reach 130 million. Accordingly, about one third part of the investments will be filled in by the investment fund allocations which will amount to 40 million dollars in total; all other grant components - 50%, as it is well known to you, shall be financed by the grant recipient. It is very significant to us to attract 400 million dollars which in fact, afterwards will yield the payback of 1 billion. Therefore, we are grateful to MCC and Mr. Danilovich in person for their support in implementation of this project.
John Danilovich, Senior Executive Director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
I am happy to be in Tbilisi again. Two days ago I inspected rehabilitation works on the gas pipeline which are conducted in a rather accelerated pace and they are well ahead of time as well. Yesterday I visited the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. In Akhalkhalaki I had a meeting with the representatives of the local government and leaders of the civil society. By way of direct dialogue we had the opportunity of learning about their standpoint and sharing our ideas with them. As for the implementation of the MCC projects in Georgia, I am proud to emphasize that Georgia is an exemplary country among those that had been selected by our company.
The prime minister also commented on the probability of construction of the nuclear reactor in Georgia. He said that it's too premature to speak on this topic. "The talks about the nuclear reactor have already been on for quite a while but the decisions have not been taken yet. This depends less on us but rather on Armenia. You're very well aware that there is a nuclear reactor in Armenia and it's quite probable that the old reactor will be replaced by the new one. This will take place in Armenia; whether it will happen in Georgia, or whether the old one will be replaced by the new facility will solely depend on the decisions to be taken by the Armenian side", - Zurab Noghaideli concluded.
Press Office of the Government of Georgia