Gov't to put 100 resorts up for privatisation - PM

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Monday said his Government had studied the potential of more than 100 currently unused and former resorts across Georgia and would put them up for privatisation.

We have about 300 climate and balneological resorts in Georgia, most of which are currently simply not functioning”, he said in reference to formerly used locations that have fallen into disrepair over decades or have not received infrastructure for realising resort potential.

About ₾200 million ($74.22mln) is being considered in next year's state budget for renovation of the most popular resort destinations in the country, including both popular and disused locations.

We will start the complete rehabilitation of the most popular resort areas - Borjomi, Bakuriani, Kazbegi, Mestia, Tskaltubo, Batumi, Kutaisi, Mtskheta - and we are going to implement very interesting projects in Barisakho-Roshka, Manglisi-Sioni and Omalo", Garibashvili said, adding detailed presentation of the projects would be hosted soon.

Georgian Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili added his team and the recently established Resorts Development Agency had visited “almost all municipalities” of the country and worked over several months with local authorities to explore development opportunities of resorts with potential. 

There are too many resorts [...] which today do not have adequate investment attractiveness, and we have evaluated and prepared [a number of] locations which, in our opinion, will be interesting for investors”, he said.

“The National State Property Agency will start privatisation offers for state-owned properties, [while] at the same time, we will work on developing master plans for wider areas so that these resorts are developed according to correct plans [instead of] chaotic development", Davitashvili said.