According to the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Levan Davitashvili, one of the topics to be discussed within the Georgia-Saudi Arabia Business Forum will be the issue of starting free trade.

As Davitashvili told the journalists, negotiations on free trade with the Council of the Persian Gulf countries began in 2019, which were interrupted during the pandemic, and now this issue is still relevant.

"We had started negotiations on this [free trade] with the countries of the Persian Gulf. There is a council of Persian Gulf countries. As a rule, the free trade agreement is discussed within the framework of this Council, and not individually, with individual countries, although there are still exceptions. Last year we finalized and signed a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and this year it should enter into force. Also, last year, within the framework of the "Silk Road Forum", we had the Secretary General of the Council in Georgia and we talked about the renewal of free trade negotiations, which we started talking about in 2019. Unfortunately, covid has interrupted this process. "Now this issue is a topical issue between the two countries, and this will be one of the topics discussed with the minister today," said Levan Davitashvili.

As for the Georgia-Saudi Arabia business forum taking place in Tbilisi, Davitashvili hopes that within the framework of the forum concrete results will be achieved in the direction of investments.

"For us, direct foreign investments are very important for economic growth. During the last 3 years, along with the recovery of the economy, we kept foreign investments at a fairly high level. It was about 2 billion dollars on average, which is a high indicator in relation to the gross domestic product, but our goal is to attract quality, direct investments from different countries in order to maintain economic growth on the one hand, and to be able to qualitatively improve the structure of our economy on the other hand. In this direction, the Ministry works a lot with different countries. We have an intensive dialogue with the main partners. One of the important potential partners for our country is Saudi Arabia, which is the largest economy in the Persian Gulf. Last year was a very successful visit to the Persian Gulf where we met with the management team and government officials. During this meeting, it was decided to establish formal relations, platforms to encourage economic relations between the two countries. And so it happened - last year a unified platform was formed between the chambers of commerce; Also, with the participation of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, a business council was created, where Georgian and Saudi Arabian businesses are represented, in order to further encourage investments and trade relations. Today's forum is a logical continuation of the work started. We have planned B2B meetings and I hope concrete results will be achieved within the framework of this forum in the direction of investments", said Davitashvili.