According to Iva Chkonia, President of the Georgian Distributors Business Association, several topics were discussed during the meeting with EU's sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan, including the readiness of Georgian businesses to be part of Europe.
“It was quite an interesting meeting. Georgia should not be a corridor for bypassing sanctions, and we should not take such a step that will damage our European future. It was especially important to see the perspectives of the business and how it is involved in this process. We should realise that the war may end soon, but the sanctions against Russia will be in effect for many years, and wether we are ready for this or not depends on us,” he notes.
In Iva Chkonia’s words, the meeting with O'Sullivan didn’t touch on the specific discussion points, sanctioned products, and so on.
"We raised the issue of the opening the doors of Europe for Georgian manufacturers. The imposition of sanctions by Georgian businesses was not discussed, Russia is still a traditional market for both imports and exports. In a bid to reduce dependence on Russia, everything should be done to open the doors to Europe for our manufacturers,” he stresses.
