Mr. Valeri Chechelashvili, Secretary General of GUAM paid a visit to Tbilisi, on May 3-7, 2010, upon the invitation of Mr.David Jalagania, Deputy Foreign Minister, GUAM National Coordinator, with the aim to hold consultations with the Heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Ministries and Agencies of Georgia.

On May 3, during the meeting of the GUAM Secretary General and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia the stressing issues of cooperation within GUAM, as well as perceptions of Georgian side on implementation of GUAM ongoing and elaboration of new projects were discussed. The Georgian side, as the former GUAM Chairman, underlined the importance to timely hold the planned meetings of the GUAM Sectoral Working Groups, as well as high level meetings of GUAM ruling structures (Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and National Coordinators) in the first half of 2010. Herewith, the sides took into consideration the political situation in Ukraine, the GUAM Chairman country from January 1, 2010, as well as recent statements and recommendations of Ukrainian governmental representatives on further development of cooperation within GUAM Organization and urged the expediency to consider the position of Georgian side and proposals on GUAM cooperation urgent issues during the meeting of the Secretary General with the new governmental representatives of Ukraine.

On May 3, during the meeting with the Georgian State Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure the GUAM Secretary General underlined the importance of holding successfully the GUAM Working Group meeting on Transport in May 2010 in Baku for further development of transport corridor of the region and more efficient use of the existing potential in this regard. The State Minister found it reasonable to hold the next meeting of the GUAM Working Group on Transport at the level of the relevant Deputy Ministers and fixed the readiness to present several precise project proposals on full utilization of GUAM transport potential. The State Minister also paid attention to existing practice of close cooperation between Georgia and Azerbaijan Republic in the sphere of transport and expediency and economic profitability of inclusion of the respective structures of Ukraine in this process.

On 5 May, during the meeting of the Secretary General with the Minister of Energy of Georgia the issues of ongoing and new regional energy projects were discussed. The Minister of Energy of Georgia expressed readiness to organize and hold the next meeting of the GUAM Working Group on Energy (country-coordinator - Georgia) in the GUAM Secretariat in Kyiv in June this year and personally participate in this event. Herewith, the Minister considered expedient to discus at the meeting the possibility of inclusion of Moldova and Ukraine in the project of delivering the liquefied gas to Europe via Georgia. The discussion was also focused on expediency to elaborate project proposal and consider them at the relevant Working Group meeting in the direction of exploring the potential of alternative energy sources in GUAM region and present this initiative to Japanese side, GUAM partner country, with the aim to use the experience of Japan in this field in case of consent.

On May 6, during the meeting of Secretary General with the Minister of Economic Development of Georgia was highly assessed the role of the GUAM Secretariat in preparing the GUAM Joint Tourist project and active participation of Japan in this initiative. The sides supported the proposal to separately present the GUAM tourism potential and the GUAM Joint Tourist product at the Tokyo International Tourism Expo scheduled to be held in September this year. The dynamic of trade-economic cooperation between the GUAM member states was also discussed at the meeting. It was underlined that despite existing hard economic and political situation in the country the trade turnover of only Ukraine with GUAM member states in January-February 2010 composed $427935.3, comparing to the same period trade turnover of 2009 which composed $232302.6. Based upon such data, overall trade turnover within GUAM will reach $4,5 billion by the end of 2010 that in large part is stipulated by the GUAM Free Trade Zone project. However, the possibilities of this project are not yet fully used.  The Minister expressed readiness to personally participate at the planned meeting of the GUAM Working Group on Tourism in Baku and actively support to work out new project proposals in the spheres of tourism, trade and economy.

On May 7, the meeting between the GUAM Secretary General and Georgian National Coordinator was again held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, concluding the results of the consultations held in the sectoral Ministries and outlined the plan of forthcoming joint activities and organizational events. The Secretary General gave a high evaluation to the readiness of Georgian side to actively contribute to the cooperation within GUAM and maintain the growing trend of development of the Organization started during the Chairmanship of Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2007-2009.

Division for Cooperation with GUAM Countries

10.05.2010