The FINANCIAL — French Business Council – Georgia (FBC) took part in its first international economic forum in Paris on April 10th.
The event, jointly set up by the French Agency for International Development Ubifrance and the Senate, gathered 180 participants from private sector, IFI’s, and public administrations in presence of Mr. Francois Poncelet, the President of French Senate. Nine presentations and 2 round tables, covering 8 countries (Armenia, Azerbaïdjan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan) took place on that day.
Newly established French Business Council- Georgia (FBC) claims to be attracting new members, thus helping development of the business-economic partnership between the two countries.
Tamara Kovziridze, Vice Minister of economic development gave a convincing speech regarding the “great economic potential of Georgia”. This vision was relayed as well by the Economic Counselor Alexandre Troubetzkoy, who made an interesting parallel in his speech between the middle ages chivalry battles and the contemporary booming economic developments taking place in Georgia, in which ones he would like to see more « capitaines d’industries » getting involved.
During the symposium great focus was put on Georgia, and the FBC. After a lunch in Senate in presence of Giorgi Baramidze, Vice-Prime Minister of Georgia, the first afternoon round table, devoted to the three Caucasian States, was an opportunity for FBC President Gilbert Hie to announce formally the existence of the FBC, its aims as communication center for fostering trade and investment between Georgia and France, and its forthcoming plans.
FBC board member Jacques Fleury, presented the successes of Borjomi and other projects he promotes in tourism and real estate.
“We have a lot of support from different French organizations in terms of Borjomi mineral waters. However, today Borjomi is not directly exported to France, it is mostly exported to the Baltics, Poland and Germany. Although since a very big top class Georgian restaurant is going to be opened in Paris soon we’ll have Borjomi there as well as various Georgian wines,” Jacques Fleury, GG&MW (Borjomi), told the FINANCIAL earlier.
Mr. Gilbert Hie, taking the flow as CEO of Bank Republic, also gave an overview of the positive evolutions in Georgian banking sector, and the global dynamism of real estate, tourism, and agro business.
Bank Republic (BR) / Société Générale Group, CEO of which is Gilbert Hie, the President of FBC, is the very bank to have attracted a huge amount of French investments to its capital.
In September 2006, Société Générale- the big French group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) entered into an agreement with BR’s shareholders to acquire 60% and 10% respectively of the share capital of BR.
This day of talks was ended up by a cocktail given in the Senate premises, an enjoyable way to wrap up a full day of work, and an opportunity for FBC members to talk into further details about promising perspectives for French businesses people interested in Georgia’s potential.
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