“The government planned to receive 300 million last year from the sale of state property, but failed to fulfill the plan and earned only 200 million from privatization that is GEL 100 million less than planned due to the wrong and inefficient privatization,” expert Ramaz Gerliani says.
According to Gerliani, the privatization is aimed at a more efficient operating of the sold objects and benefiting the national economy, but the issue raised a lot of remarks.
“On the one hand, we deal with wrong planning and the state’s wrong expectations, and on the other hand, the objects that require large funds to be purchased and large investments, are not integrated into the country's economy that reduces their attractiveness for the private sector,” the expert believes.
In his opinion, if the state really wants to sell its property, it should reconsider the methods of privatization.
“The government has been trying to carry out large-scale privatization over 15 years. There are many problems, including a lot of bureaucratic procedures resulting in misunderstanding between the public and private sectors. The state should listen to potential investors to know what they want to buy, and carry out privatization taking into account their opinion,” Ramaz Gerliani believes.
“For this reason too many auctions end in vain and many objects can’t be sold. Today the state has 1,100,000 hectares of agricultural land, 200,000 hectares of urban land, 50,000 buildings, most of the forest areas. The state’s property is not sold and is actually inactive,” the expert stresses.
