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PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/324

TRADE POLICY REVIEW:

Further structural reforms, key to sustained development

Georgia’s recent economic policies have met with considerable success guided by reliance on the private sector for growth in a liberalized trade, investment and business environment, in what has been on of the world’s fastest reforming economies, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the trade policies and practices of Georgia.

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The WTO report, along with a policy statement by the Government, will be the basis for the Trade Policy Review (TPR) by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO.

Prior to the armed conflict with Russia in August 2008 and the world financial crisis in September, per capita income rose three-fold, GDP rose by nearly 10% per annum and Foreign Direct Investment more than doubled to an estimated 17,2% in 2007. But those twin shocks hit many sectors and dampened economic growth.

Although there has been some diversification, Georgia’s export structure remains quite concentrated in traditional products. In agriculture, a sector critical for the economy, labour productivity is one tenth of that in the rest of the economy and the activity has registered a decline due to shortage of credit and the small size of land plots.

The report says that continuing structural reforms will be key to strengthening Georgia’s resilience to shocks, sustaining growth, attracting investment into export activities and improving productivity; in short, in developing an enabling environment for export diversification in terms of both product composition and geographical direction.

The report, along with policy statement by the Government of Georgia, will be the basis for the first Trade Policy Review (TPR) of Georgia by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 8 and 10 December 2009.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

• Secretariat report
  > Contents and summary observations
  > Economic environment
  > Trade and investment regimes
  > Trade policies and practices by measure
  > Trade policies by sector
  > Appendix tables
    
• Government report
    

Note  back to top

Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member countries’ trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant developments that may have an impact on the global trading system are also monitored. For each review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents are then discussed by the WTO’s full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRB’s meetings are published shortly afterwards.

Print copies of previous TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Genève 21 and through the on-line bookshop.

The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States.

Schedule of forthcoming reviews  back to top

Coming soon...

SEE ALSO    > Full list of previous TPRs

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