Tbilisi: The Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, Irakli Nadareishvili, presented the economic impact report of the “Make in Georgia” programs. According to the Deputy Minister, small and medium businesses are the foundation of the Georgian economy and, therefore, its promotion is one of the main priorities of the Government of Georgia.
It was for this purpose that the agency “Make in Georgia” was created, and it has been playing a very important role in supporting small and medium businesses in different directions for years.
According to him, the Ministry of Economy and “Make in Georgia” are constantly taking care of modifying and updating programs in order to adapt to the needs that small and medium businesses have in particular presence.
“I want to emphasize, for example, a pandemic period, when we completely addressed programs for the needs associated with addressing the current challenges.”
Of course, it is very important to constantly evaluate the effectiveness of programs, their impact – this enables us to make timely decisions needed for businesses regarding changing program design, whether to take care of new tools for the sector, which has been constantly happening during the existence of “Make in Georgia”.
For example, a few years ago, we introduced a very successful tool – the credit guarantee scheme, which has become another additional bracket to provide access to finance,” Irakli Nadareishvili noted.
The Representatives of public agencies, donor organizations and business associations attended the presentation on the economic impact of programs implemented over ten years by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development Agency “Make in Georgia”.
The Director of the agency Mikheil Khidureli introduced the guests to the presentation the results based on financial and economic analysis of the beneficiaries of the programs.
Over 11,000 projects were financed by the agency during its existence, i.e. ten years, and more than 60,000 jobs were created in total. In addition, the effect of loan interest subsidy is important – for 1 GEL issued by the agency, the beneficiaries generated an additional 14 GEL income. In the gross domestic product, the contribution of 1 GEL is 4.2 GEL.