economic reform in georgia

Filed in archive Politics on August 5, 2004

Source: www.equilibri.net

The Economist reports about the new reforms which should be better coined as a restart of the economy in Georgia:

"Next year---if not sooner---he will cut the rate of income tax from 20% to 12%, payroll taxes from 33% to 20%, value-added tax from 20% to 18%, and abolish 12 kinds of tax altogether. He wants to let leading foreign banks and insurers open branches freely. He wants to abolish laws on legal tender, so that investors can use whatever currency they want. He hates foreign aid---it "destroys your ability to do things for yourself," he says---though he concedes that political realities will oblige him to accept it for at least the next three years or so."

It will be pretty interesting to see what happens. Georgia has hardly been the place to go for serious investors and was neraly off limits for most in the last 18 months of "revolution". But Estonia also had not much to sell in the start and began attracting entrepreneurs and money. I'm curious how things look in 2-3 years from now....