On October 13, 2010, the meeting of the government of Georgia was held. 83 issues were on the agenda.
The Prime Minister Nika Gilauri talked about his business visit to the U.S. before the meeting was commenced. Given below is the speech of the Prime Minister:
"While we commence the meeting of government, I'd like to talk about the visit to the U.S.
I want to sum up the visit and it's worth noting that it was the important and successful one. It served to several purposes and today, we can say that all the goals have been achieved.
The additional and increased political support was expressed in Hillary Clinton's speech. In her speech Hillary Clinton supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia and called upon Russia with specific demand- to withdraw the troops form Georgian territory. The Secretary General of the United States highlighted that these territories are occupied territories in Georgia.
The economic support was also obvious. Ms Hillary Clinton directly called on American businesspersons to come to Georgia and be more active as investors.
Economic support was expressed during the meeting with the Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. Various issues were discussed at the meeting, including allocating funding from American institutions to Georgia. I mean the Financial Institutions such as Exim Bank, OPUC, MCC. These International Financial Institutions have huge funding and their arrival in Georgia will be important for the economy of the country.
So far, Ex-In Bank of the U.S. has not carried out any projects in Georgia. It was settled at the meeting to sign the additional memorandum between the Government of Georgia and Ex-Im Bank, which will foster the investment flows to Georgia in future.
We had the successful meeting to OPIC, which has had the limit of funding for Georgia so far -in the amount of 200, 000 000 dollar. Now, there isn't any limit, consequently, the private sector has the opportunity to apply for the additional funding to OPIC. This is the organization working with the private sector.
The important meeting was held to the International Finance Corporation-IFC, which also works with the private sector and, it's first case that the fund has been allocated for the development of agriculture. I want to note that in the nearest future, this organization will hold the special briefing, conference and seminar for the Georgian businesspersons teaching how to get additional funding for the development of agriculture sector from IFC. Consequently, the private sector of Georgia will get the additional funding from the organization for the next years.
We also had meetings to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and MCC. I'd like to tell you the first transh of MCC will be successfully ended on March in the next year. There is talk about allocating the second transh. The final decision has not been made yet. The decision will be made by the council on November-or December of the present year. This funding will be allocated to establish the University under the Management of the leading American University.
We also had meetings with the credit rating agencies -Fitch, Moody's and Standard and Poor's. you know that Moody's has increased the credit rating of Georgia few days ago. At the moment, the rating of Georgia is on BB level, which is very important for the private sector to attract additional funding in Georgia at low cost, as well if we'll decide to issue Eurobond next year or in the nearest future, to have the low percent on International Finance Market.
We had relationship with other agencies as well. They are also going to review their current assessment. In the nearest months, we believe that Fitch will come on December or January and make the new report for Georgia.
I had also some speech at the different Institutions, one of them was at the Atlantic Council of the United Sates, the conference made for the businesspersons of JP Morgan.
The core question was Russia's affiliation to the Organization of Commerce. Our response was clear "We support Russia's affiliation to the Organization of Commerce, but if all commitments of the organization shall be observed." One of the commitments is that customs checkpoints shall be transparent, which unfortunately, is not observed on Russia-Georgia border. I mean borders connected to the occupied territories.
Press Office of the Prime Minister