8

HEALTHCARE
caucasian business week

QUOTES

Villagers Should not Demand Help from the

Government

TEMUR CHKONIA
Businessman co-founder of Coca-Cola
Bottlers Georgia
To reduce poverty in the country it is necessary to reduce bureaucracy, create a good investment climate,
quickly and flexibly discuss various projects that require authorization from the government. The government should facilitate the work of brands that can produce export products.
Work should be carried out in two directions; its necessarily to satisfy the local market and develop export

markets. At a time when the countrys population is 3,7

million we should not expect that foreign investors will
be interested in the internal market. It is necessary to
attract international brands that work for export.
There is no alternative at this stage. Much is being said
about Georgian wines great export potential, but it will
take 10-15 years to become a reality.
Bureaucratic barriers prevent a fast development of business. Some procedures require too much time, and the
government knows this well. Thats why this issue arose
- we are poor and must become rich. All came to the conclusion that we need effective work. When they say we
are working 24 hours a day - it is also wrong. We have to
work 8 hours a day, but to work properly and efficiently,
and this would be sufficient. Another vivid problem
Georgian people accustom to living in poverty. We got
used to buy very old, second-hand cars, second-hand
clothes, we are accustomed to cheap food, markets, street
trading, etc. Given that we live in the 21st century and
modern shopping centers should open everywhere.
We constantly see whining people begging the state for
help. How can a man who lives in the village ask the government for help? In Georgia, everything is expensive,
products are imported from other countries, it comes to
the fact that the villagers buy greens in Tbilisi.
This is a complex topic. I do not want to blame someone.
It is a mental problem. Everyone thinks that the state
should help, a neighbor should help. Everyone thinks of
the aid, and not about finding a way out. Today, a lot of
social programs were launched in our country, and this
is wrong. People need to get used to work.

Georgia Needs Enterprises Working with the Use of

Local Raw Materials

CAESAR CHOCHELI
Georgian Businessman
We will not overcome poverty until jobs are created in
the country and people have the opportunity to fend for
themselves. To do this, we need to create as many jobs
as possible, respectively, we have to build new plants,
develop tourism, and only after that it will be possible
to get out of this state. There is no alternative, and I
do not think that somewhere there is a country that has
overcome poverty without creating jobs.

Government programs, such as Produced in Georgia

are of course a good initiative and praised them when
they were just announced. The only thing I did not
agree with then and I cannot agree now is limitation on
the amount. Today the country needs any enterprises small, medium, and large.
Apart from programs, the desire of both government
and society, and of course, business is necessarily. But
if you pay attention to the topics of news programs on
TV, you can see that during the day maximum half an
hour is devoted to business and economics, all the rest
of the time is given to politics.
So one of the problems is that there is not enough serious media outlets whose sole focus is business. Their
number should increase in order people to be less interested in politics, and more - in economy. And now,
instead of thinking about the welfare of their families,
people are convinced that tomorrow everything will
be better by itself, so they passively wait for improvements. Instead of weaving political intrigues, it will be
better to engage in economic issues.
Georgia has few resources, but they are sufficient to
develop local production. If today we have some production, it is largely dependent on imported raw materials. We need to develop these sectors where local raw
materials can be used. Accordingly, in such a situation
imports and the outflow of currency will reduce.
Industries I have in mind are agriculture, processing industry, production of building materials. For example
clay, from which we can produce ceramic products,
which today is 100% imported.

June 1, 2015 #101

REORGANIZATION OF GEORGIAN
HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Dr.Malkin and Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO

Global Alliance Presented Plans on World Healthcare

68-th Assembly

r. Jean-Elie Malkin, President

of GAHSC (Global Alliance for
Health and Social Compact), attended the 68th World Health Assembly which took place last week
in Geneva. On this occasion he participated in
different events and meet with high level people
and decisions makers.
An event on digital health was organized by the
association of French pharmaceuticals companies. Some concrete examples were presented
demonstrating clearly theadvantages of using
e-health in training programmes for health professionals and showing the huge benefit of using mobile phones (m-health) in prevention programmes like tobacco prevention or prevention of
complications of diabetes. Awa CollSeck, Minister of Health of Senegal and Said AidiMinister
of health of Tunisia presented ongoing e-health
and m-health initiatives in their countries and
Dr.Malkin had the opportunity to discuss with
them and other attenders the importance of digital health as a key component of health system.
Dr.Malkin had also the opportunity to meet and
discuss with Florence Gaudry-Perkins, Director
of International Affairs of Alcatel-Lucent one of
the major IT company, who emphasized in her intervention the role of Private Public Partnership
with IT sectoras a very efficient mechanism to
implement digital health programmes.
Dr.Malkinattended an event organized by UNITAID, an organization hosted by WHO, which
uses innovative financing to increase funding for
greater access to treatments and diagnostics es-

pecially for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis. The meeting was focused on Innovation for health and in
particular on partnership between governments,
international organizations and private sector.
On this occasion Dr.Malkin meet with PhilipeDousteBlazy, Chairman of UNITAID and under
UN secretary general for innovating financing
mechanisms and discussed with him the different
health financing systemespecially in the eastern
Europe region.
During the World Health Assembly Dr. Malkin
attended the opening session in which German
Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a very powerful message on the need for improving the role
of WHO in supporting countries towards a more
efficient health system for the benefit of all populations. At the reception organized by german
mission in Geneva Dr.Malkin meet with Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO and had
the opportunity to present the work of GAHSC
in the region of eastern Europe and especially in
Georgia. Margaret Chan welcomed this initiative and wish all success to GAHSC. Dr. Malkin
had numerous other meetings in particular with
representatives from Georgia mission in Geneva,
with Minister of health of Moldova M.Buga, with
Minister of health of Belarus M.Zharko, with
M.Kuljanov Senior adviser of ministry of health
of Kazakhstan, and Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director. Dr. Malkin present t all these
people GAHSC emphasizing the innovative and
pragmatic ways of working on health systems
and promoting the wish of GAHSC to build partnerships with major stakeholders.

We will be Involved in Discussions about Separating

Banking Supervisory Functions from the National
Bank of Georgia

GIORGI GAKHARIA
Business Ombudsman
According to the business ombudsman, business has
felt inconvenience and discomfort about the draft law
on the separation of the Financial Supervision Agency
from the National Bank as businessmen were not involved in this process.
We have agreed to increase their involvement in the com-

ing days. Both one and another side adduce their arguments. I think that somewhere in a week we will have a
balanced decision. The main message of the business is
that this process and initiative is an important process in
which the business should be engaged, - Gakharia notes.
According to him, we shouldnt play with the banking
sector and it is a very important sector.
While discussing the issue commercial banks topic
should come out of the brackets because it is a specific
initiative proposed to the National Bank. Business has
its own vision and its own arguments. The other side
has its arguments. I could not see insurmountable problems. Well weigh everything and make a decision, Gakharia notes.
He believes the consultations should be held with the
business about the bill, because business treats this bill
very carefully and did not see the instruments of how
this law will work.
A legislative initiative providing for the transformation
of the Supervision Agency over commercial banks into
an independent structure was registered at the bureau
session on Monday.
The initiative belongs to Tamaz Mechiauri, the head of
the Budget and Finance Committee of the Parliament.
In his words, the separation of the Agency from the central bank was caused by a non-transparent activity of
the National Bank of Georgia.

Dr.Malkin and Awa Coll Seck, Minister of Health of Senegal