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Draft law on mountains in Georgia

19.02.2015

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says work on the mountain bill will be completed by the end of February. The work on the draft has been underway for several months and the final version of the draft law has already been discussed. The law aims to stop the depopulation of the mountains and the development of such regions. For this purpose the authorities plan to take steps to encourage certain benefits for mountain communities.

The current draft law provides for the creation of a legal space that would allow the population to rely not only on state aid, but to create their own well-being. According to the project, entrepreneurs who will start businesses in mountain regions, use local resources and employ local residents, will be exempt from taxes for three years, in the case of re-investment, taxes will be written off for a period of three years.

The mountain law envisages 50 percent higher salaries and pensions for local residents. We are talking about relatively high wages of health care and education workers.

According to the first deputy governor of the Mtskheta-Mtianeti Koba Arabuli involved in the work of the group, permanent and temporary residence status will be introduced. According to the draft , permanent resident means a person who spends in the mountains nine months a year, a temporary resident status means six-months in the mountains in the 12-month period.

Accordingly, the preferential system for the temporary and permanent residents will be different. He adds that funds creation will be allocated from the State budget, it means that the Council at the Prime Minister will be created to adopt decisions on the most pressing issues as well as the Department will be set up at the Ministry of the Regional Development. The mountain agency will be established to monitor the implementation of the law as well.

Arabuli says that it is difficult to count costs at this stage, as there is no exact data on how many people live in the mountains.

In the words of Deputy Governor of Mtskheta, in the next few days a final version of the bill should be submitted to the government and then will be sent to Parliament.