The conflict in Ukraine, from which Georgia expected an economic collapse and a recession, suddenly turned into economic growth, writes Haqqin from Azerbaijan. Cargo, Russian “nonsense” and dollars poured into the country.
By Tengiz Ablotiyah
When you say the words: “For whom war and mother-in-law are dear”, they, as a rule, leave an unpleasant residue. Because immediately, it is related to moral lawlessness, robbery or something else unworthy.
Like someone dies or becomes disabled, and you use these troubles to line your pockets.
On the rare occasions when war brought economic benefits to a state, its leaders were ashamed to admit it.
But sometimes, a war without any negative context is really “mother-in-law” because it can bring quite unexpected tangible economic preferences.
It seems like yesterday you watched the conflict in horror, counted the losses and shook your head in anticipation of the collapse of the economy.
And then, all of a sudden, as if someone up there understood the reason for your fear and decided to help.
In such cases, professional writers use the phrase “divine chance.” This is the case we are talking about.
When the conflict in Ukraine began, Georgian economists and experts sadly predicted an imminent all-out economic disaster for the country.
In fact, it was hard to accuse them of excessive pessimism since Russia and Ukraine – both in terms of exports and tourism – are Georgia’s two biggest trading partners.
It was still possible to afford the loss of one of them.
But the simultaneous loss of the export markets of Russia and Ukraine, as well as the complete or even partial interruption of the air supply from the oxygen pillow called “tourism”, threatened Georgia with the collapse of the national economy for a long time.
As if predicting the imminent shortage of cash in dollars, the national currency of Georgians sailed towards infinity, falling within two or three days from 2.8 to 3.4 laras per dollar.
And since there was nothing to stop the free fall of the national currency, clouds of hyperinflation began to thicken over Georgia’s financial system.
In short, only a miracle can save the Georgian financial system and the country’s economy, which even children do not believe in our pragmatic times.
And then suddenly, quite unexpectedly for everyone, planes from different cities of Russia began to land one after another at the Tbilisi airport, filled with young people with the appearance of classic “people” – messy glasses with friends, with women, often with dogs. , less often with children, and mostly single.
And if, at first, few people understood what was really happening, then after a few days, astonished Georgians realized with a piercing clarity: These “people” with Russian passports and laptops under their arms are now their new compatriots .
At least for a while.
There would be no happiness, but adversity would help. In short, Georgia overnight became one of the centers of mass Russian emigration.
Georgians, stunned by surprise, watched in silence as new immigrants lined up for bank accounts, ran in search of rental housing, becoming more expensive by the hour, looking for suitable food for their dogs and cats…
And then a second surprise followed, which also collapsed on the heads of Georgians without any warning – on the airwaves of domestic and foreign television companies suddenly appeared alternating pictures of multi-kilometer queues of freight lines lined up at the borders of Georgia.
And not that it directly hit my compatriots – the blockage at the borders has always been a familiar and even routine sight.
But what happened after the sudden influx of “people” was already taking on an epic character, approaching the proportions of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Not only the customs officials, but also the heads of the Georgian ports, from Poti to Batumi, filled to the brim, spoke of the border blockage, in which the cargo simply did not have time to be processed, and the freight wagons stood unloaded in reserve. tracks for a few weeks…
As it turned out, part of the transit from Central Asia and China went due to sanctions against Russia in the South Caucasus, that is, through Azerbaijan and Georgia, which were completely unprepared for this shipment of “manna from heaven.”
Let’s be honest: in many respects, this unpreparedness was of an objective nature – neither Baku nor Tbilisi, even in the most optimistic forecasts of their economists, expected such a rapid increase in freight traffic.
And not stretched in time, as is usually the case, but in the form of an avalanche, which hit the transport systems of Azerbaijan and Georgia in just two or three weeks…
At first, the Georgian people did not understand anything at all.
Unlike its national currency, which immediately began to strengthen.
And so quickly, no one even had time to ask: “Hey, government and national bank, will you at least explain what’s going on?!”
And what happened was that in just two or three weeks, the lari not only returned from 3.4 to 2.7 per dollar, but also dragged down.
Yes, it strengthened so unambiguously that the National Bank of Georgia had to urgently sell more than 100 million dollars in the market, so that the lari, God forbid, would not become stronger than the national currency of the United States.
Well, over time, an understanding of the scale of both phenomena came.
From March to September of this year, 112,000 citizens of the Russian Federation and about 30,000 citizens of the Republic of Belarus moved to Georgia.
We are silent about the Ukrainians, most of them are refugees, so it would be ridiculous and unethical to expect any contribution to the Georgian economy from them.
In just a few months, Georgia’s population of 3.7 million has grown by about 150,000, mostly young, energetic, educated and creative people.
Most of them continued to work “remotely”, and their very large salaries are now spent not in Moscow and Novosibirsk, but in Tbilisi and Batumi.
Moreover, rich Russians open a business in Georgia, buy apartments here and transfer their capital to Georgian banks.
In January-March 2022, an average of $24 million was transferred from Russia to Georgia every month, and as of April, $133 million has already been transferred.
Remittances from Russia to Georgia hit a record high in May of $314 million. In total, in the first nine months of 2022, $1.135 billion was sent from Russia to Georgia.
In 2022, Russian citizens bought more than three thousand apartments in Georgia, and in the period from March to September, about 9,500 Russian companies were registered in Georgia, which is ten times more than in the whole of 2021.
Thus, in the example of simple figures and without comments, it is possible to understand how the conflict can become a “local mother” for Georgian banks and its real estate market, tourism, restaurants and other services.
As for the situation with transit, everything is not so simple as we are talking about more delicate issues – changes in this market are much more difficult to follow.
At the moment it is only known that the transit through the territory of the “Middle Corridor” has increased by 30 percent and this is only the beginning.
If Azerbaijan and Georgia manage to solve the infrastructural difficulties that inevitably arise with such a rush, the transit flow will surely increase.
The conflict in Ukraine, from which Georgia expected an economic collapse and recession, suddenly turned into an economic growth of 10 percent.
And now tell me: who could have predicted such a development of events on February 24, 2022?
Perhaps someone will say that I contradict myself and that increasing economic growth at the expense of the deaths, mass destruction and broken existences that accompany any armed conflict, including the conflict in Ukraine, is immoral.
In order to justify Georgia and Azerbaijan, I can say only one thing: the economic growth of our countries is in no way connected either with helping Russia to circumvent economic sanctions, or with any other action that could help Russia or harm Ukraine.
And then, when this conflict started, neither Azerbaijan nor Georgia asked for anything.
