Low productivity of Georgian industry

Former Minister of Economy and Economic expert Tamaz Agladze thinks that the small internal market and the low purchasing power of the population have made the country less attractive for investors. Georgia can produce innovative goods and exports due to its cheap labour but development of this economic segment is hampered the by the low productivity and non-professionalism of the workers.

Tamaz Agladze quotes the observation made by World Bank research that labour productivity in Georgian light industry is lower than in Ghana. The wage for a worker involved in furniture production in Georgia is almost the same as in Romania but their productivity is three times less, and seven times less than in Ireland.

We think the reasons for such a dire situation are many. The first is the lack of qualifications of the workers, there is no systematic support for training and retraining. The system of certification has not been modified in years. These failures could be assigned to the bad practice implemented in the educational system in the so-called reforms of Georgia’s current Ambassador to the UN and former education Minister Kakha Lomaia. These destroyed the educational infrastructure by ousting all the experienced professors and teachers.