Mining license component added to ‘100 Investment Offer to Business’ program
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Wednesday, February 12
Under the instruction of the Prime Minister of Georgia, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has expanded the ongoing program "100 Investment Offers to Business" with a component of the licenses for extraction of minerals, which was presented in Marneuli, near the Basalt field. This mine is one of the major facilities offered for business under the new component.
“We are offering the business a hundred parallel electronic auctions for mining licenses, which is a very large-scale and interesting initiative. These are minerals that have the potential to be export or import substitutes, including various metals, mining chemicals, building materials, groundwater, and these are the resources that our economy needs to grow even faster, to increase economic growth, create new jobs and to attract new investments,” noted the Minister of Economy Natia Turnava.
Natia Turnava explains that in total, there are one hundred minerals' licenses that are worth at least 82 million GEL. This will be included in the state budget. According to her, there is an investment of at least 120 million GEL, which the business will undertake in the part not only to obtain but also to process minerals on site. “These are at least 1800 new jobs in Georgia,” said the minister.
Members of the government discussed the need to expand the program ‘100 Investment Offers to Business’ at its February 6 meeting. The program involves not only the privatization of state property but also the announcement of the auction of minerals' licenses within the project.
This is an important direction of the plan within which the Georgian government wants not only to extract but also to recycle on-site minerals and to keep the core value in Georgia.
The state must regocnise the need to work on the application of high environmental standards in the process of extraction and production. These requirements will be considered as license conditions.
Members of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Parliament of Georgia, as well as representatives of business associations and business sector, attended the presentation of the new component of the program on Basalt deposit. Maia Zavrashvili, Head of the National Agency for Minerals of the Ministry of Economy presented the detailed presentation of the new component to the audience.
