The First Deputy Chair of the Sector Economy and Economic Policy Committee delivered a speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In his speech, Irakli Mezurnishvili focused on issues such as regulatory impact assessment and the role of the government in introducing the innovative technologies and digitizing the economy.

As the Georgian MP noted, the newly introduced instrument that envisages the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is a significant achievement of the current Government.

“Heretofore, the Parliament had to adopt dozens of bills with ill-formulated and vague explanatory notes. Now, by means of the RIA, the initiator of the draft law will be obliged to foresee all possible risks and scenarios arising from the adoption of the law and to make an appropriate CBA, thus providing an accurate picture of the consequences of adopting this law. Initially, this instrument will be mandatory for the Government bills, though MPs will be more than welcome to employ the novelty into the lawmaking process”, - I. Mezurnishvili noted.

The Deputy Chair noted of the negative practice implemented by the former Government that resulted in deregulation policy and provided for the disastrous consequences virtually in all areas, especially in the financial sector - "Deregulation policy in the financial sector and the lending practice solely using the ID cards had brought about the excessive indebtedness thus making Georgia one of the countries whose population were somehow liable with banks, majority of whom were insolvent. This practice has changed dramatically, and the National Bank has partially restricted the issuance of loans without the proper confirmation of income. At this, over 600,000 blacklisted debtors were fully released from the financial liability by the Cartu Fund of Bidzina Ivanishvili. Consequently, these people managed to get back to the active economic life”.

Irakli Mezurnishvili also highlighted Georgia's recent breakthroughs in technology and underlined that Georgia waQCs the first country in the world to implement the blockchain in the public sector - “Incredible as it may seem to the Georgian population living several years before, our Government was the first in the world to introduce blockchain in the public sector. This service has made our country even more attractive to the global investors. Holding the leading positions in the World Bank Doing Business Index, we remain consistent in the top 10 countries best for doing businesses. One should go through the least number of procedures to get his/her business registered and launched in Georgia. Therefore, in this regard, we take the first place in the world. The Georgian tax environment is one of the most liberal and attractive. In addition, our population is historically the most hospitable nation. Hence, Georgia's doors are open to anyone who wishes to make friends with us and do business”.