New Energy and Vice Prime Ministers
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, July 13
Georgia now has new Energy and Vice Prime Ministers. The decision was made by the Georgian Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, at Wednesday’s Cabinet session.
The posts of Energy Minister and Vice-Premier became vacant after Kakha Kaladze, the Energy Minister and the second Vice Prime Minister, quitted his posts in order to run in the Tbilisi Mayoral election as the candidate of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Kvirikashvili announced that Deputy Energy Minister Ilia Eloshvili will serve as Energy Minister, describing him as a professional and an experienced person, who has worked as Deputy Minister since 2012 and briefly as Energy Minister in September-November 2016.
The PM wished success to Eloshvili in his future activities.
“He is experienced in both the private and public sectors as well as in international programs…I think that he will be a very successful Energy Minister,” Kvirikashvili claimed.
For the post of the second Vice Prime Minister, Kvirikashvili named Georgia’s Foreign Minister, Mikheil Janelidze.
The Prime Minister noted it was very important to outline the foreign direction in the top priorities.
"Mikheil Janelidze took very successful steps in foreign direction issues and by his appointment to this post we underline the importance of foreign relations for Georgia,” Kvirikashvili said.
He added that Janelidze played a very important role in the successful completion of Georgia’s visa-liberalization process.
“I believe that making foreign relations as one of our top priorities will be very important for successful implementation of Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” the PM added.
The Georgian Prime Minister now has three deputies. The first deputy is Finance Minister Dimitri Kumsishvili, the second is Janelidze and the third Education Minister Aleksandre Jejelava, who was appointed to the post on February 2017.
