After a three-day whirlwind tour in Israel, in which she met three cabinet
ministers, signed two bilateral agreements, held meetings with a variety of
business people and even managed to fit in some tourism, Georgian Minister of
Economy Vera Kobalia came out with a decisive conclusion – she loves
Israel.
At 29, Kobalia is one of the youngest cabinet ministers in the
world. Born in Georgia, she spent more than half her life living in Canada. She
said that since taking office in June she feels like she’s been living aboard
airplanes, but that she tries to split her time evenly between Tbilisi and her
responsibilities abroad. This is Kobalia’s first visit to Israel, but she said
she hoped to return soon.
RELATED:Travel in space: Viewing the galaxy from IsraelThe rivers and the road map“It’s like a tasty dish. You try a little and
you want more and more. I would love to come back here in the future, hopefully
as a tourist so I won’t be so busy and will have a chance to see more of the
country,” Kobalia told
The Jerusalem Post at her Tel Aviv hotel earlier this
week.
“We have a saying in Georgia that anything really important that
you want to achieve needs to be completed yesterday. I have a feeling that the
same could be said here in Israel,” said Kobalia. “In general, I find that there
are a lot of similarities between our two countries, things we have in common
that make us the way we are. For example, both of our countries are relatively
small and lack natural resources. This makes us rely on human capital and
foster creativity and busy lifestyles. The benefit of not having oil and gas is
that it doesn’t make you lazy.”
Other similarities Kobalia identified
were both countries’ strained relationships with their neighbors.
“We
have our neighbor to the north [Russia] who we fought a war with in 2008 and who
constantly seeks to overshadow us, and you have your neighbors who you don’t
always get along with either,” she said. “I don’t usually talk about politics
and diplomacy, because that is not my background, but I can say that we have
always been very thankful for all the support Israel has given Georgia and that
we have always been supportive of Israel. As I said, we are share a lot of
commonalities, we are only two hours away and Israel is an important strategic
ally of Georgia.”
The main achievements of Kobalia’s visit were the
signing of two bilateral agreements, one a tourism agreement she signed with
Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov, which is intended to increase tourist traffic
between the two countries, alongside information exchange, marketing activities
and greater cooperation with wholesalers. The other was a flight agreement with
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, which will increase air traffic between
the two countries.
“We are seeing growing numbers of tourists heading
back and forth in recent months, and the current flight agreements are too
limited,” Kobalia said. “Try and book a flight from here to Georgia and you
won’t be able to find a seat. I had to wait two weeks until space opened
up.”
Tourism matters made up a big portion of her timetable during the
visit and it may pay off. After signing the agreement with Katz, the
transportation minister said that he hoped Georgia proved a suitable substitute
for Turkey as an Israeli seaside destination. If that proves to be the case,
Georgia can expect a boom in incoming tourism.
“There are signs that
indicate that that may happen,” Kobalia said. “In the last three years, tourism
from Israel has grown by 100 percent every year. When someone goes to a place
they like, [he or she shares] it with other people, and this is what I’m seeing
happening with Israelis.”
Those numbers may increase even more rapidly if
Meseznikov’s stated intention of canceling visa requirements for Georgian
nationals is put into effect.
Kobalia’s tourism responsibilities also met
her with a group of Israeli hoteliers, who she hopes may be interested in
investing in Black Sea resorts.
“Right now we have just the right number
of rooms, but we anticipate a shortage of 10,000 rooms in 2013,” she said. “In
order to encourage investment in hotels and resorts, we have created a tourism
free zone on a long stretch of the coast. Anyone who submits an offer to build a
hotel will receive state incentives in the form of free land and no taxes for 15
years.”
Another field that is under Kobalia’s responsibility and close to
her heart is the information technology and communications sector. Though her
meeting with Israel’s minister of communications, Moshe Kahlon, didn’t result in
a bilateral agreement, Kobalia said that it laid the groundwork for future
cooperation between the hi-tech sectors in both countries.
“I heard from
him about some of the reforms he is advancing here and shared some of the things
we are doing in Georgia,” she said. “I am a great believer in the importance of
access to information, and a developed hi-tech sector enables that. One of the
projects we are currently conducting involves giving a laptop to every first
grader.”
Kobalia hopes that this initiative will help children feel
comfortable handling technology at an early age, so that they “can spread the
knowledge to the rest of the population.”