Georgian economy: for understanding of 30 years of transformation (საქართველოს ეკონომიკა: 30-წლიანი ტრანსფორმაციის გაგებისათვის)

Abstract

The dissolution of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, on 25 December, 1991, had huge affirmative consequences on Georgian people. The country’s independence and statehood were restored. During 30 years, Georgia lived through the phases of wild capitalism, taming and transforming it into democratic capitalism. In the first phase, from 1992 to 1995, market economy emerged in its rudimentary form at the constitutional level and different institutions were established. The next phase included its transformation through modernization which is still going on. Decommunization ended in Georgia along with the restoration of its independence, however, desovetization is still under the process and sometimes even the precedents of resovetization such as one-party-governance system occur. The existence of some elements of the Soviet system is a result of lagging behind efficient and competitive market economy that led to a thirty-yearfailure to reinstate the level existing in the Soviet Union, namely the level of social-economic development of 1988. In 1988, GDP (constant 2015 US$) totaled to 21, 533.00 USD, while in 2019, the year before COVID-19, amounted to its 82.5% - 17,758.00 USD. Other economic and social indicators have not been achieved yet. It would not be the case if the country had had a unified, comprehensive and systemic strategy detailing the parameters of desovetization, modification, economic growth and social development in time and space along with the responsibility for its implementation, and the needed budget. Otherwise, the governance would not be reconcilable and coherent and would have the signs of parallelism and low efficiency in which the governing elite displays the interest to retain the process of desovetization interminably. During the period of impulsive governance, the ruling elite has a possibility to impede the process and get richer because of the system inadequacy. The solution to the problem lies in speeding up the process of desovetization and introducing an indicative system. However, in order to do so, it is imperative that the governance system be enhanced through qualitative improvement of human resources and political elite. Normative motivation system where one of the most important requirements shall be scientific qualifications of state-political appointees should be introduced to expedite the evolution process of qualitative improvement of the country’s political elite.