Tbilisi hosts Israel-Georgian Gateway Innovation Forum

The best of Georgia’s investment market and its further potential was highlighted today to high-level Israeli businessmen at the Israel-Georgian Gateway Innovation Forum.

Today was the first day of the Forum, and saw Georgian Prime Minister speak about the importance of maintaining successful business relations with Israel and continuing further investments in the country.

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and other key officials opened the Tbilisi event and said there were "several options for business development and investing in Georgia” to potential investors.

"Georgia can offer the greatest location and a market worth 900 million consumers, and the guarantee of this is preferential systems with eight countries of the world, including USA and the expected Deep and Free Trade Area with the European Union from September 2014. As well as this, Georgia has free trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Turkey,” Garibashvili said in his speech.

The Prime Minister believed the rule of law and the protection of private ownership was a priority of the Georgian Government and it did its best to help the country become one of the best places for doing business.

"As the head of Government, I promise you that every cent of your investments will be protected and confirm my eagerness to be the patron of a fair, transparent and safe investment environment in the country,” he said.

During the Forum, Israeli businessmen showed a keen interest in doing business in Georgia and discussed opportunities for innovation projects, growth in exports and foreign direct investment.

A representative of Top Image Systems (TIS), a leading global provider in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions market, showed its interest in the mobile application market in Georgia.

"TIS has the experience of working with Georgian partners. We have explored the mobile application market in Georgia [and] it sounds interesting,” a TIS representative said.

The executive director of the Partnership Fund (PF), a state-owned shareholding company of Georgia, got in touch with Forum participants and informed them about the Fund’s work.

"Georgia is an important business partner for Israel. I believe the business forum will support and strengthen business ties in the economy sectors including energy, agriculture and industry,” Irakli Kobzanadze said.

The two-day Forum focused on discussing opportunities for development projects, growth in exports and foreign direct investment between the two countries.