There are cars in the city that do not stand up to any criticism in terms of technical inspection, said today the Mayor of Tbilisi.

“Until 2012, there were about 180,000 private cars driving around Tbilisi during peak hours. As per today’s data, there are more than 600,000 private cars in Tbilisi. This is the biggest problem in terms of emissions and air pollution. Also, unfortunately, a very bad practice was introduced in Georgia, where most of the cars were sold with their catalytic converters removed. Such cars drastically and dangerously pollute the environment. This is the main cause of nitrogen oxides pollution in the air, and our capital city is in a really bad position in this regard.

Given the current situation, I welcome the very correct and necessary initiative announced by the Prime Minister. Imposing the proposed regulations will, of course, limit the importation of outdated cars with high emissions, which will, in turn, prevent air pollution. It should also be noted that there are cars in the city that do not stand up to any criticism in terms of technical inspection. Specific steps will be taken to regulate this in order to achieve clean air with joint efforts what is important for our health.

We have repeatedly told that air pollution is a serious problem in the capital, and all parties including the municipality, the central government and the people who live in this city must make every effort to regulate this problem. One of the issues we have worked on in 2017 was the mentioned problem and many positive steps have been taken: we tightened the rules for transportation and disposal of dusty materials; a number of recreational areas have been established, where thousands of seedlings have been planted, and the process continues; public transport, buses and minibuses have been completely renewed. We all remember the terrible exhaust from both the buses and the minibuses what was a huge problem. We were breathing it all in what was the acutest issue. Today, we have completely renewed public transport of Euro-6 standard in the capital”, - said Kakha Kaladze.