Not much FDI so far

According to Government prognoses Georgia should attract around USD 1.5 billion in FDI in 2010. The National Investment Agency's boss Irakli Matkava is more modest in his estimates however, predicting 1.2 billion. Some analysts challenge both figures, suggesting that less than a billion, 700-800 million at best, will enter Georgia from abroad as investment.

In the first quarter of 2010 almost no serious investments entered the country. Matkava says that investments mainly occur in the third and fourth quarter. Georgia’s economy is supposed to grow by 2% this year but this projection is mainly based on the nebulous interest expressed by potential investors on different occasions, not definite promises or plans, let along actual cash pledges. If all promises had been kept the investment boom should have already begun in Georgia but alas this is not the case.

Georgia received 449 million USD in FDI in 2005, 1.19 billion in 2006, 2 billion in 2007, 1.56 billion in 2008 and 759 million in 2009.