Georgia receives 240,000 Russian tourists in seven months, 6,400 Russian companies registered – TI Georgia

Georgia has received 240,000 Russian tourists and about 6,400 Russian companies have been registered in Georgia between January and June 2022, Transparency International Georgia said in its survey released on Wednesday. 

The  survey said that Georgia’s dependence on Russia has increased, as over the past seven months Georgia has received about 1.2 billion US dollars in income from Russia through remittances, tourism and export of goods, which was  2.5 times more than in the same period of the last year. 

Head of the organization, Eka Gigauri, said that 93 percent of the 6,400 Russian companies were individual enterprises, “which indicates that a part of Russian citizens moved to Georgia to do business here”. 

Gigauri said that Georgia was unlikely to receive the European Union candidate membership status next year “amid the attacks of the Georgian Dream government and the ruling party to the country’s foreign allies and strategic partners”. 

“I do not think that individual members of the ruling party express their opinion when they address our partners unethically”, Gigauri said, pointing at the “general propaganda” coming from the party’s top figures. 

TI Georgia suggested that the goal of the government should be to “minimize economic dependence” on Russia. 

“For this, the government should more actively and quickly start working on signing free trade agreements with all strategic partners. Also, it is important not to give subsidies from the state budget to such businesses that increase economic dependence on Russia, and Georgia should develop a strategy to reduce energy dependence on Russia”, said the organization.

Georgia has several months to address the EU conditions to receive the candidate status next year.