Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday slammed the report by Transparency International Georgia which said that Georgia’s dependence on Russia, as well as the influx of Russian citizens, has “seriously increased” over the past seven months, claiming that there was “no serious increase”, and that “young people with good incomes come to Georgia from Russia because they like the stability Georgia has”.
In his comments, Papuashvili stressed that comparing figures with the data of 2020-2021 was “wrong” as the influx of tourists was lower in previous years due to the pandemic.
The Speaker also slammed the TI Georgia head Eka Gigauri for her words that the Georgian Dream Government was “attacking the country’s strategic partners”, which would “hamper Georgia’s European integration process”.
“The speculations that there is an anti-Western campaign in Georgia is disinformation targeted against our country”, Papuashvili claimed.
The report released earlier today reads that Georgia has received 240,000 Russian tourists and about 6,400 Russian companies have been registered in Georgia between January and June 2022.
The survey noted that Georgia’s dependence on Russia has increased, as over the past seven months the country 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.