Tbilisi hosts the Georgia - Saudi Arabia Business Forum. According to the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Levan Davitashvili, one of the topics to be discussed within the event will be the issue of starting free trade.

“We had started negotiations on free trade with the countries of the Persian Gulf. There is a council of Persian Gulf countries. As a rule, the free trade agreement is discussed within the framework of this Council, and not individually, with individual countries, although there are still exceptions.

In 2023 we finalized and signed a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and this year it should enter into force.

For us, direct foreign investments are very important for economic growth. During the last 3 years, along with the recovery of the economy, we kept foreign investments at a fairly high level. It was about USD 2 billion on average, which is a high indicator in relation to the gross domestic product, but our goal is to attract quality, direct investments from different countries in order to maintain economic growth on the one hand, and to be able to qualitatively improve the structure of our economy on the other hand. In this direction, the Ministry works a lot with different countries.

We have an intensive dialogue with the main partners. One of the important potential partners for our country is Saudi Arabia, which is the largest economy in the Persian Gulf. 2023 was a very successful visit to the Persian Gulf where we met with the management team and government officials. During this meeting, it was decided to establish formal relations, platforms to encourage economic relations between the two countries”, - said Levan Davitashvili.