Fady ASLY of ICC Georgia: "Georgia has lost attractiveness for foreign investors"

Is the business climate now getting any better? Do investors get adequate protection?  Is it a good time to start business in Georgia? 

17.04.2019 (Caucasian Journal). Our today’s guest is Fady ASLY, Chairman of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Georgia). Since its launch in 2002, ICC has been not only a top executives’ club, but often a shelter for mistreated businesspeople, where they could find an efficient support. 

Caucasian Journal’s readers are the first to hear Mr. Asly’s answers.

Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of Caucasian Journal:  Dear Fady, first of all, thank you for support to Caucasian Journal and attention to our growing readership. Though you are not Georgian, you are widely popular in this country. Many people know you as a leader of business associations, an entrepreneur, and even an original writer. But let us imagine you are facing an unfamiliar audience. How would you explain why you care so much about Georgia? 

Fady ASLY: When I woke up early in the morning of April 28, 1998, hours after my first ever arrival to Georgia, I opened the balcony door of my hotel room and was taken aback by the beauty of the landscape, Mtatsminda’s amazing green hill with its small red-roofed mushroom houses under a clear and bright blue sky.

Laura THORNTON of NDI Georgia: "Georgians cited domestic violence as top problem, followed by early marriages, and sexual harassment"

interview

Are women and men treated equally in today’s Georgia? Are women represented proportionally in government and legislature? Is the society prepared to freely discuss all the gender-related issues?  

10.04.2019 (Caucasian Journal)  As Caucasian Journal continues to cover the current stage of civil society development in the Caucasus, we have prepared this kind of questions for our today’s guest Laura THORNTON, Global Associate/Senior Director at National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Georgia.  (Read the Georgian translation here).

Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of CJ: Dear Laura, it is a pleasure to have you with us on this beautiful springtime day, just a short while after celebration of more than one Georgian holiday related to women and women’s rights. Flowers, gifts, postcards have been all around. May I start by asking about your attitude to the traditional way such holidays are celebrated, and to the idea of women’s and mother’s days in general?

Laura THORNTON: Absolute pleasure to be here. Well, I certainly do like flowers, and I am not one to say that there is anything fundamentally wrong with getting the public to focus one day a year on the often rather dire situation many of the world’s women find themselves, or to celebrate mothers. Do I wish that we could have this conversation and focus 365 days a year? Absolutely.