By David Khurtsia
Imereti is the most populous region of Georgia with more than 800,000 inhabitants. It is located in the western part of the country on the main transit road between the Caspian and the Black Seas in proximity to Georgia’s main seaports and easily accessible by road, rail, and air.
Imereti is one of the major traffic and transit points for the flow of goods between Europe, the NIS, and Asia. Its proximity to Georgia’s main seaports, Poti and Batumi, makes Imereti Region a prime target region for investors interested in assembling imported components or exporting to the European Union (EU) and the Near East.
Kutaisi, Imereti’s capital and Georgia’s second largest city (250,00 inhabitants), as well as the two other major cities of the region, Samtredia (37,500) and Zestaphoni (27,000), are major industrial and trading centers.
The region’s forest resources are considered to be among the richest in the whole country. Although a good part of wood from the region, such as beech, oak, and chestnut, is already exported to Turkey and the EU, the wood processing sector still offers plenty of opportunities for investors.
Imereti is a major agricultural region, producing many fruits and vegetables, tea, spices, and various kinds of livestock. As a result of the decline of many traditional food processing enterprises, these commodities are currently available at very competitive prices. They offer investment opportunities in export‑oriented processing activities such as deep freezing, juice concentrates, or fruit pastes.
There are rich deposits of mineral waters, many of which have already been famous in the NIS for decades. Although some of them—such as Sairme—are already bottled, many are still awaiting investment.
Imereti’s natural beauty and many historic sites offer potential investments in the tourism sector. Its numerous health spas, such as Tskhaltubo and Sairme, were visited by half a million people per year during Soviet times.
Positive Trends
Martin Bauer, Germany’s largest importer of black and herbal tea, has invested in several large tea plantations and factories in Imereti.
After it was sold to a Georgian‑Russian bank, the Zestaphoni ferromanganese factory is expected to triple its production to $50 million in 1999 (35 percent of Imereti’s total industrial production).
The Kutaisi truck factory, one of the largest vehicle producers in the USSR, has successfully been restructured. Spin‑offs include a rubber product enterprise and, in a joint venture with the Italian car manufacturer FIAT, production of molded car details. The whole complex doubled its production in 1998 and is expected to continue growing strongly.
Several large, new mineral water bottling plants, among them a German‑Russian joint venture for bottling the famous water from Sairme, started operation in 1998.
Tourist visits strongly increased in 1998. The planned construction of a large hotel in Kutaisi by American investors should boost the tourism sector further.
David Khurtsia is director of the Business Support Center of Kutaisi. For more information, contact the BSC at tel: +995 (331) 411-55, tel/fax: +995 (331) 010-01, email: bsc@bsc.com.ge, or website: www.bsc.com.ge.
Look for Search for Partner leads from Georgia’s Imereti Region on BISNIS Online at www.bisnis.doc.gov.