Foreign direct investments in Adjara region total $106mln, says regional Gov't Head

Georgia's Black Sea region of Adjara received $106 million in foreign direct investments in the first nine months of 2022, Tornike Rizhvadze, the Head of the Government of Adjara, said in his end-of-year summary of his office’s work on Thursday.

Local media outlet Interpressnews cited Rizhvadze noting the real estate sector, transport and processing industry had seen the largest share of FDI during the year.

He also said the regional Government paid "a lot of attention" to the development of tourist infrastructure, and announced a new landscape park had been approved for the Machakhela locality, 30 km from regional capital Batumi, for contributing to the development of tourism in the region. 

We continue to build tourism infrastructure, which will ultimately further strengthen the importance of the protected area of Machakhela, both from the tourist and economic points of view", he said.

Batumi. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

Rizhvadze mentioned next year’s regional budget would reach ₾535 million ($201.91mln), with the budget set at ₾300 million ($113.22mln) for Batumi and ₾54 million ($20.38mln) for the city of Kobuleti. He said the budgets would "allow us to implement many important projects". 

"Construction of road [and] tourism infrastructure will be actively continued. Natural gas and water supply projects of mountainous Adjara are no less important”, the regional Government Head pointed out.

“Six new kindergartens will be built in Batumi. We are actively continuing to work on the Emergency Houses programme, and in this direction 10 new residential blocks will be built to enable approximately 1,000 families currently living in emergency conditions to continue their lives safely", Rizhvadze said.

Batumi public bus fleet will continue to be updated, Rizhvadze also revealed, adding 60 new buses would be introduced in the city next year and allow for a “full update” of the city transportation fleet by the end of 2023. 

Up to 55,000 individuals will benefit from the planned healthcare and social programmes next year in Batumi, he said, adding projects in the region’s Khelvachauri municipality would see the opening of new social houses and kindergartens, in addition to renovation of “all administrative centres”.