Notes

The Government of Georgia is creating a new type of FIZ, "Special. Financial Zone ”will be located on 110 hectares in Tbilisi and Gonio. The Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili stated about it at the government session today. According to the spec. Financial zones should bring the status of a regional financial center of Georgia. Legislative changes are needed first, and the government will be consulted on the model of these financial centers by Rothschild Investment Holding, with which the government signed a contract in December.

BMG asked Natia Turnava, the Minister of Economy, what kind of benefits these centers will offer to foreign investors. The Minister said that there is talk of introducing a special regime in three areas, although the details have not been decided and agreed at this time. According to the Minister, the concept of the financial zone will be based on the "last generation" model.

"Creating financial zones is a modern type of zone. We used to have more industrial type zones, now we are talking about the latest generation, modern financial zone, which operates in many countries, and a good example of this is the Dubai International Financial Center in the Middle East, as well as the Abu Dhabi International Financial Zone. The supplier company should be registered and able to operate. There will be special conditions in this zone, attractive to international companies in the financial spectrum.

This space will be for fintech, commodity trading, brokerage operations.

It will be a good platform for strong international companies who will come and register and relocate their activities to these zones. This is an opportunity not only for foreign but also for Georgian companies, as the creation of the zone is preceded by development work, as well as the construction of high-class office or residential premises and infrastructure.

Legal, regulatory and fiscal work is also needed.

We are well placed, even if the time zone we have is one that can serve both the Asian financial markets as well as the European financial markets. General stability is also important, as well as macroeconomic stability, as well as political stability, and the reforms that have been carried out in Georgia position itself as a country developing business model oriented to the Western model.

Compared to many European and Asian countries we have cheaper utilities, cost of living and business expenses. This too will certainly be attractive.

Why Tbilisi and Gonio? - A similar zone should be developed near a large urban center. Should be located close to international airports. It should also be a separate compact area, so Gonio and the Tbilisi Sea were chosen.

Recently, startups and service outsourcing businesses are growing rapidly. This experience will also help us.

As for the rest of the details, the financial zone will consider different regimes in three directions. It will be legal, the second is regulatory and fiscal, although on the fiscal side there is not much opportunity for liberalization because our tax system is already liberal. We will offer a special mode. We need highly qualified advice for this, Rothschild & Co is invited for this, ”said Natia Turnava