Tbilisi: Otar Shamugia, Georgia’s Minister of Environment Protection and Agriculture, called for investment in the agriculture sector. He expressed his views during the opening event of the new citrus receiving-processing enterprise in Kobuleti.
The Minister of Environment Protection and Agriculture Otar Shamugia alsog with other represrntaive of ministry attended the opening event of the new citrus receiving-processing enterprise in Kobuleti. He was accompanied by first vice Prime Minister Levan Davitashvili and the Chairman of the Government of Adjara Tornike Rizhvadze.
As Otar Shamugia mentioned, underlining the role of people, the implementation of projects of such a large scale is very important for the development of the agricultural sector.
The Minister during his speech added that “The new citrus processing enterprise in Kobuleti is fully equipped with modern technologies. Foreign investment has been introduced so that a maximum number of farmers are especially from rural area can get benefits from the agricultural processing sector. Every year 10-15 thousand tons of citrus fruits are processed in the region.”
He further added that, It is important to operate a modern enterprise that ensures receiving and processing citrus from farmers, then making concentrated juice, which will be exported to more than countries including to the European Union market, thus it will create more value. Projects of such scale are very important for our country for agriculture. We welcome and will support the investors as much as possible.
It should be noted that the new enterprise will prepare tangerines, citrus juice concentrate and plastic boxes for fruit transportation for sale. The company also has a cold storage facility for storing up to 3,000 tons for fresh fruits and vegetables. The company is ready to buy mandarins from local farmers this year and process them.
The Georgian-Slovakian investment in the Kobuleti enterprise was made by the company “Iberia Orbi LLC”. At this stage more than 3.5 million euros have been spent although the company plans to make additional investments and increase the assortment.
