Saakashvili Predicts 7% GDP Growth in 2011

On October 19 President Mikheil Saakashvili, during a meeting with a group of public officials, assessed the results of the Centre for Law and Democracy according to which from 80 countries Georgia comes in second place according to ratings of budget information availability. Only New Zealand scored higher.

"Nothing has recently made me so happy as the survey results by the Centre for Law and Democracy", President Saakashvili said. "The survey precisely depicts the achievements the Georgia`s state apparatus has. This success was caused by the reforms we are carrying out", he added. The Ask Your Government! 6 Question Campaign - was the name of the campaign, in the fames of which the researcher organizations requested information from various budgetary structures, without being notified about the survey in advance.

Talking about Georgia’s economy and GDP the president stated that Georgia’s 2011 second quarter real GDP growth slowed to 4.7% year-on-year, after an increase of 5.8% in the previous three months. Real GDP growth in the first half of this year was 5.2% and the growth was 6.6% in the same period for last year. Saakashvili also said that this year the economy will have growth of 7%. "Our economy is growing contrary to negative trends in the rest of the world,” he added.

Saakashvili said everyone should think about where Georgia was 6 or 7 years ago and where the country is now, how the police worked years ago, the creation of the new Houses of Justice, which, the president said, foreign visitors always find amazing.

“When I asked you a few years ago to make exhibitions in order to show the population what each state office does, many of you found it quite surprising then. The purpose of my idea was to have you working out of habit, that you serve the people,” the president said.

He added that staff turnover is a painful process and the state has a much more careful approach to the issue now.