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International Economics 1

Drafter: George Nanobashvili (Economic Events Manager)
Seminar/Workshop Title: Reform of the National Statistics System of Georgia
Location: Young Economists Association, Conference Hall
Length: 2 hours.
Date: June 26, 2010
Guest Speakers: Ms. Lana Oniani (Adviser to the Prime Minister of Georgia)
Topics elaborated:

  • Reasons for launching  the reform.
  • Overview of the previous institutional system of statistics
  • Overview of the reform process

The main points of the workshop:
Mr. Gogi Geguchadze (Director of  AC-GE) and Mr. George Nanobashvili (Economic Events Manager of AC-GE) introduced  CABIR and its recent and planned activities. They stressed the importance of the reform of official statistics and presented the guest speaker: Ms. Lana Oniani, who planned and coordinated the reform process and developed new legislation in this field.
Ms. Lana Oniani presented to the audience the statistic system existing before the reform. She stated that the main concerns that the public and international community  raised were:

  • Lack of trust toward the whole system, non reliability of the data produced;
  • Insufficient capacities of the central and sectoral institutions:
    • Financial vulnerability;
    • Compliancy of the methodology applied to recognized international standards;
    • Insufficient human resource capacities;
    • Lack of institutional independence of the whole system;
    • Lack of coordination among the central and regional offices, as well as among the central and municipality level statistics offices.
  • The guest speaker gave an overview of the reform process. She informed  that the Government of Georgia has elaborated  the new legislation  which  introduced a new institutional set up of the system:
    • Independent from the Government and directly accountable to the Prime Minister and Parliament institution – GEOSTAT
    • Statistics Advisory Board was created under the GEOSTAT. This is an advisory institution established to ensure better cooperation between the Government and nongovernment sectors in statistics. The board consists of ex-officio members from the public sector and non-government and academia representatives who are selected and approved by the government for a 5 year period.
    • At the current stage, the government works on optimization of the statistical works, intensification of cooperation with donors and capacity development of the national, sectoral and municipal statistical offices.

 Issues raised during the discussion:

  • The issue of trust toward the statistics and data elaborated is still problematic. It is early now to talk about  restoration  of  trust and reliability, though these are primary issues.
  • Currently there is a lack of professional staff in the system, as for many years  employment in the system was  not competitive and there were significant staff cuts.
  • The statistical methodology applied is outdated and there is no assurance of its compliancy with international standards.
  • There are no clear separation and cooperation mechanisms, particularly between the statistical offices at national and municipal level.
  • The budget of the GEOSTAT is very limited and it does not allow to finance large scale development program.
  • There is lack of cooperation between the primary data providers and the GEOSTAT’s staff which  lacks  high quality data.

Total number of participants: 16
CABIR: 5
Government Officials: 5
NGOs: 3
Academic Institutions: 3

 

International Economics 2

Drafter: George Nanobashvili (Economic Events Manager)
Seminar/Workshop Title: Challenges and Needs for Reforming the National Anti-monopoly Regulation
Location: Young Economists Association, Conference Hall
Length: 2 hours.
Date: October 15, 2010
Guest Speakers: Mr. Lasha Mgeladze (Head of the State Agency for Free Trade and Competition), Ms. Manana Shurgulaia (Deputy Head of the Agency for Rree Trade and Competition), Ms. Natia Samushia (Experts, Advisory Group in International Relations to the Prime Minister).

Topics elaborated:

  • Principles of institutional reform of Antimonopoly Regulation
  • Development issues of the Competition regulation policy

The main points of the workshop:
Mr. Gogi Geguchadze (Director of AC-GE) and Mr. George Nanobashvili (Economic Events Manager of AC-GE) introduced CABIR and its recent and planned activities. They stressed the importance of the reform of the national system of antimonopoly regulation and presented the guest speakers.
The guest speakers presented to the audience the present outline of the national system of antimonopoly regulation. She stated that antimonopoly regulation is one of the most sensitive and important issues in negotiations between Georgia and EU on Association agreement and Free Trade agreement negotiations.
The current system is mostly oriented on regulation of state aid and the authority of the national agency is limited to the one of provision of recommendations and conclusions on the state aid programs (meaning both: federal and municipality programs).
Currently the reform of the antimonopoly system is on-going that already ensured institutional independency of the national agency which is now accountable to the Government and is not under umbrella of any ministry.
The new legislation will be elaborated to introduce the regulations compliant with good international practice:

  • regulations of mergers and acquisitions;
  • prevention of abuse of dominant market position;
  • antitrust regulations.

The National Free Trade and Competition Agency has concluded a strategic cooperation agreement with the Swedish Antimonopoly agency in order to set up strategic cooperation between these two agencies and apply its good practice.
The Georgian national agency’s capacities will be strengthened with the aim of attracting sufficient expertise and knowledge of the field, to perform efficiently the investigatory functions.

Issues raised during the discussion:

  • The issue of the functions of the agency was raised by the participants, as there is a perception that the agency lacks sufficient power to perform investigation and impose actions.
  • Currently there is a lack of professional staff in the system, as for many years employment in the system was not competitive and there were significant staff cuts.
  • The issue of the reforms effect on the private sector transactions was also raised as the regulations which are planned to be introduced will affect significantly the freedom of merging and acquisitions of businesses.
  • The information and data collecting was also raised, as the agency will need proper and timely mechanisms of collecting of data for performing new functions by the agency.

Total number of participants: 16
CABIR: 5
Government Officials: 5
NGOs: 4
Academic Institutions: 2

 

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