Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia held a Working Meeting with Juansher Burchuladze, Minister of Defense, Deputy Ministers of Defense and other management officials of defense forces of the country today.

Plans of the institution for 2023 and major directions aimed for enhancing the defense forces of the country as well as welfare packages for servicemen for the improvement of their social conditions were discussed at the meeting. Meeting was also related to the performance of the Development Strategy of Georgia - Vision for 2030.

Focus was made on the increased budget allocations for defense and security in 2023. It was noted that the budget of the Ministry of Defense of Georgia was increased by 260 MLN GEL in the current year. 1.260 BLN GEL will be proportionally distributed among every direction and for the development of defense capabilities of Georgia. All servicemen have salaries and wages increased by 20% from January 1, 2023.

Minister of Defense briefed the Prime Minister of Georgia about every key program and project, which will be implemented in the current year:

– Cooperation will be continued with NATO and international partners for enhancing the defense capabilities of the country. Military aviation will continue improvements and current pool of air carriers will be restored, rehabilitated and modernized;
– Significant steps will be further taken for advancing Georgian military manufacturing. Namely, vehicles of various modifications manufactured at Delta will be supplied to the Georgian Army;
– Work will be actively pursued for the procurement of portable air defense systems, as well as towards manufacturing non-pilot-operated aircrafts. At present, Georgian-Polish enterprise Delta Vebe LLC is ensuring the production of Warmate and Flyeye unmanned assembly lines. Manufacturing will produce hundreds of drones a year:
– Military infrastructure will be further modernized and upgraded in compliance with modern standards.

Attention was paid at the Work Meeting on the current projects aiming at the development of anti-armor capabilities. Agreements have been concluded with Germany and Spain with an aim of acquiring anti-armor systems. Work is in progress for the procurement of an additional lot of Javelins from the USA. Negotiations are underway to procure Carl Gustaf rifles from a Swedish company.

A number of agreements are either pending or concluded on the development of air defense capabilities as well:

– Procurement of anti-aircraft missile complex at a short distance is completed;
– Negotiations are underway on the procurement of medium, short and super short distance air missile systems;
– Negotiations are held with an aim of procuring a portable missile system.

It was noted at the meeting that within the construction of a wide-scale housing project on Makhata Mount branded as the Army City will result in allocating units to over 1000 servicemen in the residential blocks this year and unprecedentedly concessional conditions will be offered to them by taking into consideration the household size (number of members in a family).

Active cooperation with the Parliament of Georgia is planned in 2023 for the adoption of a new Defense Code, which will fundamentally improve the compulsory military service, thereby creating opportunities for a strong reserve pool and improving the living standards of servicemen.

New projects and initiatives were also discussed at the Working Meeting. Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia gave new instructions to the Minister and Deputy Ministers of Defense.