Opposition demands support for construction business

Opposition MP Jondi Bagaturia has asked for at least GEL 200 million to be invested by the Government in the construction industry to rescue it. This assistance would take the form of loans to construction companies.

At a briefing on December 3 Bagaturia stated that from January 2009 more than 150,000 construction industry employees would be made redundant and around 25,000 customers of construction and development companies will have problems. Bagaturia said that in addition to the world economic crisis and the August war, the National Bank of Georgia should also be blamed for the crisis due to the low quality of its professional decisions.

Alongside the construction and development business related industries are suffering due to the crisis, such as transport, forwarding and import. Bagaturia also stated, without naming the banks concerned, that some have deliberately created this problem by issuing loans only for their own favoured developing companies, thus undermining and destroying the competition.