 Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'd like to welcome everybody to the US Institute of Peace. For those who are here for the first time, the US Institute of Peace was founded in 1984 by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, peace is practical, and that it is essential for the security of the United States and of the world. And we do this by working with partners around the world, on the ground, providing people, organizations, and governments with the tools, the knowledge, and the training to help manage conflict so that it doesn't become violent and to help resolve it when it does. And I'm delighted to welcome all of you here today, including the Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. We're delighted you could join us here today, sir. And the ambassador to Georgia, Ian Kelly, both of whom care deeply about this region. A very warm welcome to Prime Minister Giorgi Kavir Kavashvili. I practiced ten times. Kavir Kavashvili, he is in Washington, D.C., to advance the US-Georgia bilateral ties on a wide range of mutual interests. Including economics, business, governance, and security. And I learned a great deal about toasting from Georgian colleagues. If we were toasting right now, I would offer a toast to congratulate you on the 25th anniversary of the restoration of Georgian independence, which you will celebrate next month. So please accept those congratulations. But I also want to recognize your government's strong and very important commitment to peace and the two pillars around economic progress and inclusion of civil society, which you have pursued with great energy since you assumed office. Today's event comes at a very important time when Georgia is playing a critical role in an increasingly volatile region and doing so from addressing human rights in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to offering to host talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the recent escalation of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. You have these strong ties to NATO and the European Union and with the pragmatic approach to Russia, Georgia is continuing to build bridges both regionally and to the international community at an important time. The Prime Minister's visit this month is an extension of that effort. So I look very forward to your remarks today for prospects for regional peace, which we hope are anchored by Georgia's commitment to democratic development, internal reconciliation, and regional stability in the South Caucasus. And it's now my pleasure to introduce Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. Senator Murphy's career has been defined by public service. He began in the Connecticut House and Senate before being elected to represent Connecticut's fifth district in 2007. And now in his first term in the U.S. Senate, Senator Murphy has advocated a balanced approach to foreign policy and one that relies as much on the tools of diplomacy and development as it does on the tools of defense. He serves on the critically important committees on foreign relations and appropriations. Senator Murphy, you've often said that it is absolutely essential that America continue to be a voice for peace. Obviously, as the President of the U.S. Institute for Peace, I highly subscribe to that notion. I thank you for those words. Please join me in welcoming Senator Murphy to the podium. Well, thank you very much, Nancy, for those kind words. Thank you to all of the personnel here at the Institute for Peace for the groundbreaking work that you do all around the world for the leadership that you help provide in the halls of the United States Congress and the Senate and in the House, to both of our ambassadors. Thank you very much for gracing us with your presence here today. And it's really my pleasure and honor to introduce to you Prime Minister Kavira Kashvili. Since becoming Prime Minister late last year, he has impressed so many of us in the United States Senate who count ourselves as friends of Georgia with his skilled leadership, his vision, and his commitment to the sovereignty of his homeland. We have also taken note over the course of these last few critical months of his constructive engagement with Georgia's political opposition. We may not always be, that we may not always have the ability to practice what we preach here in the United States in this regard, but we know that a hallmark of any healthy democracy is engagement with political opponents. And before I turn the stage over to him, I just want to say a few additional words to those of Nancy about the friendship between the United States and Georgia. It's been now several years since I got the chance to personally visit my friends in Georgia, but we have had a special relationship, certainly forged even deeper in the fire of the 2008 invasion by Russia. And the Prime Minister's visit to Washington today demonstrates the enduring bond between our countries. Georgia has many friends in both the administration and in Congress, and I'm proud to place myself, I hope, at the top of that list. Now Georgia's strategic location as a bridge between Europe and Asia, it boasts enormous potential for Georgia both economically and strategically. And the United States continues to support that vision for Georgia, especially as it relates to Georgia's future NATO membership. And my main message to the people of Georgia is this, continue to believe in Georgia's Euro-Atlantic future, plan for it, fight for it. Many of us firmly believe that Russia should not have a veto over the security partnerships of its neighbors. And while I believe that Georgia deserves to be offered a membership action plan followed shortly by an offer of full membership, and I've been very vocal about this as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in the meantime we've got to look for meaningful ways to deepen our partnership with Georgia. And while much of our attention has rightly focused on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, be assured that Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity also remain a priority for the United States Congress. In the face of continued Russian occupation of Georgian land and continued security challenges on Georgia's border, I commend the Prime Minister's determination to keep Georgia on this path towards Euro-Atlantic integration. And I'm confident that his government understands that strength and stability, they start at home with good governance. The Prime Minister's efforts to embark on a series of reforms of its judicial and security sectors, they're vital, and they'll ultimately make Georgia more resilient as a country, as its institutions increase in transparency and accountability to the Georgian people. And as Georgia looks ahead to elections this fall, as do we of course, we of course encourage Georgia's leaders to support free and open political space for a range of views to be expressed. Protecting the freedom of political discourse can only strengthen Georgia's democracy. The United States, and particularly the United States Senate in which I serve, is committed to Georgia's peaceful, prosperous future. And I look forward to hearing from the Prime Minister on how we, his friends in the Congress, can best support that vision. So it gives me great privilege and honor to turn the podium over to our friends, the Prime Minister of Georgia, Giorgi Kiviris-Kashvili. Thank you very much, Senator, Madam President, Ambassador, former ambassadors, and I see many friendly faces here in this hall. I'm very glad to be here. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to this audience. The United States Institute of Peace work is as important as ever at a time of upheaval and instability in many parts of the world. Today I hope to provide a good news story to lift your spirits. This year, as it was said, Georgia celebrates 25th anniversary of restoring its independence. We have much to be proud of, even if there is still work to be done. Georgia has transformed itself from a country ravaged by civil war into a modern democratic and dynamic state. After a decade of transition, we are now in a new stage of democratic consolidation. Despite external challenges, Georgia's commitment to peace at home and in the region endures. And in this, we share common purpose with the United States and, of course, with USIP. The support to Georgian government from the United States has been vital during these many years. Georgia has been through several military conflicts and without United States support, it would have been impossible to retain Georgia's independence and sovereignty. Georgia is a dedicated friend of the United States in South Caucasus. We proved to be reliable friends during many difficult periods. Georgia remains committed to the western path of foreign policy. Georgia is Europeanizing its democratic institutions, approximating its institutional standards to the European standards. And, of course, Georgia remains committed to NATO aspirations. Georgia has one of the largest contributions in the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. And I think this is something we are proud of to stand alongside with our American friends to establish peace in the region. Let me tell you briefly about economy and economic development, since part of the purpose of our trip is a roadshow to attract US investments to Georgia. This is a very difficult balance to establish when on one side we need to talk about security and challenges in the region and on the other side to talk about stability and attractiveness of Georgia for foreign direct investments. And I believe that we can strike this right balance and we are a country that despite all the challenges outside of the country, despite internal challenges, we are very consistent on our European integration path and very consistent with our NATO aspirations. Recently, Georgia signed association agreement with European Union, part of which is deep and comprehensive free trade area agreement, which envisages fundamental changes in Georgia's institutional setting and fundamental changes in legislation of Georgia to make it more European to raise the standards of democracy in Georgia and which also on its side establishes good ground for investments and Georgia is outstanding country with its excellent ranking of doing of business, one of the lowest corruption rates, one of the lowest tax burden in the world. And these are not Georgia's government observation, these are observations of respectful international institutions such as World Bank, such as World Economic Forum and recently Freedom House published its observation of improving of rule of law in Georgia and improving media freedom in Georgia, which are of course crucial for attracting investments. There are numerous opportunities in Georgia for attracting U.S. investments. I can say that gladly that the recently we announced results of the tender for investment and construction of the deep sea port at Black Sea shore, which will be able to serve panamax type of ships, which will be one of the largest in the Black Sea basin. And this is, this will be done together with American company New Jersey based company Conti Group, which will invest together with Georgian company TBC Group to build one of the largest port again in the region. The port will be able to handle 100 million tons per year and it will be done in several phases, which is even more important, several thousand kilometers, square kilometers surrounding the port will be free industrial zone where we will attract important investments from United States and from other countries. I can say that Georgia has shown excellent growth rates despite the downturn in the region. We outstanding the region by showing from three to five percent growth rates and this is under the conditions which are not really favorable to investments and foreign direct attracting of foreign direct investments. The foreign economy turned out to be resilient during these crisis times and we do not benefit from the fall of oil prices. We are not heavily industrialized country to benefit from falling oil prices. Our main FDI providers are oil countries, so when oil prices are down investment appetite in the oil countries are down too. So despite all that we retained from three to five percent growth rate and this is something that we can be proud of. FDI attraction in Georgia in 2014 it was higher than 80 percent growth of FDI. Total number of FDI annual and FDI was 1.83 billion dollars. In 2015 it was down to 1.35 billion but still that number remained one of the highest during the last five year period. So again Georgia remains one of the most attractive places for investment. We are the only free economy and open economy in this region. We are not protectionist. We are protectionist only in terms of providing reciprocity in our free trade agreements with other countries. Some of them tend to be protectionist so we have to be very active in defending our exporter's interests. Georgia has free trade agreements. As I said with all the EU countries we have free trade agreements with our neighbors and recently we launched negotiating free trade agreement with China. We are working with EU to explore the possibility to be plugged into TTIP agreement as a country with similar regulations and institutions like EU standards and I think it will be excellent chance to establish also free trade with the United States. There are several important industries in our country which are interesting for FDI. First of all this is transport and communications. Georgia as it was mentioned by Senator lies at an important geographic location which is a bridge between Europe and Asia. And prospects for developing transport and communication industries are enormous. But beyond that our hydropower sector remains one of the most important for FDI attraction. Our tourism and hospitality sector remains booming and occupancy rates in Georgia's hotels are above 70% which creates excellent ground for hospitality investments. Our traditional agriculture sector is very attractive for investments and of course financial sector is one of the most attractive and with very lucrative return on equity figures remains one of the most attractive as we have two major banks listed at London Stock Exchange recently. So I will not continue more about economic development. I will tell you briefly that our four point reform agenda envisages important changes in the economic policies, further liberalizing tax system, fundamentally changing the mentality of tax administrators, banning the freezing of current accounts of companies without court decisions and also introducing startup financing mechanisms for innovative young people, young entrepreneurs without pledging their parents properties to the banks. This is briefly about economic block of the reforms but three other blocks are important education reform to channel government financing to those professions which are most needed for Georgia and also emphasizing more importance of professional education. And third block is introducing new model and strategy for infrastructure projects and we have excellent cooperation with World Bank. Yesterday we had an important meeting with the president of World Bank discussing strategy change to speed up infrastructure development to create important spinal infrastructure, transit infrastructure and build the roads connecting the main tourist destination. But fourth block of the reforms maybe one of the most important is governance reform to change the spirit of the government to make it more customer friendly to make it more service oriented to expand the existing public service whole concept to cover all the needs of legal entities and companies under one roof and single window principle and of course to create digital space where all these services will be available. Beyond that we have important reforms such as pension system reform that will be launched in the third quarter of the next year which will be based on compulsory savings and also which is done again with the help of World Bank and also capital market fundamental overhaul that is very important to absorb the resources accumulated by new pension system and also to give the exit opportunities for portfolio investors in Georgia. This is about economic reforms but this cannot be reached without improving security outlook for Georgia. And unfortunately we are in a situation where we have two of our genuine territories occupied by Russia. We have Russian military bases back to our soil and recently it was announced about proposed referendum of South Africa. It is out of satious potential joining of Russian Federation to keep this instrument hanging above Georgia's head in case worse of summit delivers something that can be discussed as an important progress on Georgia's NATO aspirations. Also this morning we heard that President of Russia signed the ratification document of border delimitation with South Ossetia, Republic of South Ossetia which again is absolutely against international law and serves as a way to deteriorate security outlook in the region further. Under these circumstances and under the circumstances where we have tensions in mountainous Karabakh, when we have tensions in Ukraine and occupation problems again for Ukraine, it is becoming more and more important to consider Georgia as an important ally and friend for the United States and to expand existing format of military cooperation with the United States where we have European reassurance initiative to build Georgia's interoperability with NATO troops and to expand this format and to cover more deterrence capabilities and to build deterrence capabilities of Georgia military in order to protect itself from foreign invaders. And this is something to underline that during these 25 years Georgia remained as an important ally and strategic partner for the United States. Loyal friend in which we need to continue this trend, we need to expand and deepen our cooperation with the United States including building more presence for U.S. corporations, more economic presence for U.S. companies. Now situation in occupied regions remains very fragile. Humanitarian situation remains is deteriorating every day. Two days ago 17-year-old boy was captured by South Ossetian militia and is kept in prison just for crossing this so-called border occupation line or administrative border line. We can put it either way and just chasing his cows. He was just an ordinary shepherd who was chasing his cows and it happens almost every day, every week. We have Georgian education in Georgian language banned in Abkhazia Gali district which is a violation of fundamental rights of Georgian nationals living across the administrative border line. But despite all that our commitment to rebuild peaceful, friendly relations with our Abkhazian and South Ossetian friends and citizens remains absolutely fundamental in our future policy considerations. And for this we are building our relations. We are proposing numerous social projects, free healthcare, free education for our Abkhazian and South Ossetian friends and we definitely see ice melting. But for this to sustain this path again we need international support especially from our strongest international partner United States. Now about democratic reforms and here I think we can be proud of promoting several important reforms in law enforcement institutions, in prosecutor's office, in Minister of Internal Affairs where we have chief prosecutor reporting not only to government but also to the parliament today. And we have already passed two ways of judicial reforms in the parliament and the third way of the reforms is already sent to the parliament. This does not mean that we feel satisfaction with the results that we have reached. Of course we are not perfect. We fully realize that there is a long way to go until reaching higher and higher standards of democracy but there is definite positive trend in Georgia and no one can resist and no one can reject observations of international institutions such as world governance indicators, recent figures showing the improvement by 10 to 15 percentiles in each of the areas such as freedom of expression, absence of violence, stability, quality of regulations, etc. These are remarkable achievements and again Georgia remains in this region where we have different styles of the countries and where we have absolutely fundamental existential challenges to our freedom and to our democracy. We remain democratic. We remain dynamic in our development. We have important milestones this year. This is first of all our parliamentary elections of this October which will be continuation of a row of free and fair elections in Georgia and we had several consecutive elections of a very high standard and we have committed ourselves to hold excellent one of the best elections in Georgia's recent history. For this again I proposed different format and style of communication among the political stakeholders in Georgia. I have already met with major opposition parties. I have already met with major NGO leaders discussing how to further improve election environment in Georgia and how to make political process even more civilized and we have clear positive results in that area too. Before the October election we have important milestone. This is NATO Warsaw Summit and we aim at reaching appreciation of Georgia's progress and deepening and widening cooperation with NATO. We have important achievements in the recent period. Inauguration of NATO training and evaluation center close to Tbilisi where we have important training of our military. We also aim at plugging into Blexi security platform which was proposed recently which will be important platform for Georgia's further integration to Euro-Atlantic family and community. In conclusion I would like to mention and assure you all that Georgia remains reliable friend for the United States in South Caucasus. Georgia is changing towards better standards. Georgia is Europeanizing its institution, consolidating its democracy and going to higher standards. And this path is not reversible. There is a very strong commitment for Georgian government, Georgian parliament, but most importantly for Georgian from Georgian people and no one can change this path. Despite all the challenges we will continue to develop our country in that direction. Thank you very much. Your support is crucial and I am very glad to be here and I will be very glad to answer your questions. Thank you. Welcome. I'm Bill Taylor. I'm the Executive Vice President here and I'm very pleased to be able to moderate this discussion with the Prime Minister of Georgia. Prime Minister, a great opening statement, a great speech, a great description of the kinds of things you've been talking about here in Washington. You will continue over the next couple of days. Already spoken to the Vice President, opportunity to now speak to the American people. You talked about the economic promise of Georgia. You talked about the security challenges of Georgia. And finally you talked about the democratic progress and the direction that you're going in, most pointedly on the elections coming up in October. As you said, the progress in both the economic and in the democratic depends on security. And as Nancy Limbaugh mentioned, in her opening the world has noticed your pragmatic approach to one of the biggest threats that you have acknowledged, that is the Russian occupation of part of your country. Other nations have taken a more confrontational approach. You have taken a more pragmatic approach. But you just mentioned that recently with the threat of a referendum with the signature of delimitation of the border, there have been indications that that pragmatic approach may not be effective. And I'd be interested in your description, your thoughts about where your relations with the Russians may be going. Well, thank you very much. And I will just say briefly that despite the challenges that you just listed and we described here, I think pragmatic approach works. Because we have been able to avoid further deterioration of the security situation in Georgia. We call it a survival policy. Because we need to be constructive in order to not provoke our neighbors for further conflicts. Because there is no military solution to this conflict. There is no military solution to our occupation problems. The one thing that stays most important in Georgia is to stay very consistent in our foreign policy. And the fact that we have several formats of negotiations. This is first of all Geneva International Discussion format. And we have informal format between representative of Georgia Prime Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia. They discuss humanitarian and economic issues. We need to sustain these formats in order to cool down the temperature and again to allow Georgia to attract investments and to grow and to continue democratic reforms. And I think this strategy works because during these last four years, despite signing of treaties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia on cooperation and integration, despite severe humanitarian issues on the occupied territories, again despite announcements of proposed referendums, this will not prevent Georgia going forward with its foreign policy aspirations. And this is to build European Georgia. This is why we need European Georgia. We need to build better life conditions for our citizens. We need to build strong economy. We need to protect human rights in Georgia and Georgia out stands in the region with all these achievements. So the fact that we are occupied, the fact that different agreements are being signed should not prevent Georgia to continue its path with the West. And to continue this path with the West, we need to cool down the temperature. And this constructive, so-called constructive approach is for creating enough space for Georgia's Western development. Prime Minister, I've already gotten some questions from people here in the audience, which I will read. But if you have other questions, please hand them to people who will be coming up and down the aisles. On your last point about moving in the direction of the West, both integration into the EU as well as NATO, you say cooling down the atmosphere, cooling the temperature is important. But you also mentioned military cooperation. We here at the Institute of Peace are looking for the non-violent ways of solving those disputes. Are you saying that there are military component as well as this, as you say, constructive or pragmatic approach? Well, I mentioned building Georgia's deterrence capabilities, which means that we don't want this military capacity to use it against somebody. We need this capacity to defend our territory and our territorial integrity. And for this, I think Georgian people have absolutely all rights to continue strategic partnership with the United States and to build this essential capacity for Georgia. Prime Minister, one of the questions reminds us, if we need a reminding, that your defense minister has been here several times. And she's been very clear about the direction of Georgia and reinforces a lot of what you said here. She mentioned in this building that NATO is peace. And that would tend to reinforce, I think, your statement that deterring conflict is better than engaging in conflict. However, as you have also pointed out, movement towards NATO can be seen by some quarters as provocative. Your defense minister has, she's moved clearly in that direction. You have made the same point. Your thoughts about the NATO summit coming up in Warsaw? Well, one thing should be very clear for everyone. Any talks with Russia, any constructiveness, any trade that Georgia has with Russia today, and we consider this trade as not something strategic. This trade accounts for less than 10% in Georgia's trade portfolio because we have developed trade with EU and it accounts for 33% now in Georgia's trade portfolio, trade with EU. And any constructiveness, as I said, cannot be at the expense of Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereign decisions. Sovereignty and sovereign decisions, which means that the fact that we are trying to cool down temperature does not happen at the expense of any compromises in our territorial integrity and in our sovereign decisions. Our sovereign decisions to continue foreign policy towards EU and towards NATO and to continue our strategic relations with the United States is a decision of more than 80% of Georgian population. And this is a very strong statement from Georgian population after all from our constituents, the opinion of which is very important for us. And this is also our internal emotional decision to continue this path towards Europe and NATO and strengthen the relations with the United States. So NATO summit, even if there is no consensus among the NATO members, it is a very important summit to mark the progress towards NATO, to mark the progress that we have achieved in implementation of substantial package that we have after the Welsh summit. An opening of training and evaluation center was a remarkable achievement for Georgia, but also to expand the existing formats of cooperation with NATO towards something else. And that something else can be Black Sea security platform that was recently announced by the NATO leadership and also having more cooperation, military cooperation with the United States in a bilateral format to create, to build deterrence capabilities for Georgia troops. Prime Minister, one more question from people here, still on the Russia question. And that is, Russia's economic decline looks to continue. Thank you. As Moscow runs out of economic options to shore up its economy, what are the implications for the Georgian economy? Well, we cannot predict what will be the future actions of Russian leadership. We can only say that what we need to do is we need to build our own country and to strengthen our own capacity in order to defend ourselves from any potential foreign aggression. We cannot predict what will be the continuation of the pattern of foreign policy from Russia. We have seen occupation in Georgia. We have seen occupation in Ukraine. Again, we experience severe humanitarian issues on the occupied territories. As the economy downturns in Russian Federation, it may result in several scenarios. One of the scenarios can be shifting Russia inward towards its internal problems. Another scenario which is something that creates worries for Georgia is concentrating more and distracting more internal attention from Russia towards external issues and more severe actions in terms of occupying maybe more territories surrounding Russia in its immediate neighborhood. So nobody knows. But, of course, we need to be prepared for any kind of scenarios. We need to continue and try to do all that is possible in order to avoid any further complications with Russian Federation because it can kill the chances for Georgia to continue this very, very positive trend. Prime Minister, it's not just the Russians that are causing problems in the region. And we have a question here from Dr. Susan Allen from George Mason University close by. Mr. Prime Minister, you mentioned your efforts to reconcile peacefully with the Abkhaz and South Asetian people. You mentioned free healthcare and other incentives to move them in your direction. And you noted the need for U.S. support for your efforts in this area. What specifically can the U.S. do to help? And at George Mason University, she says, we convene Georgian South Asetian discussions. We would love to host Georgia and Abkhaz and South Asetian students to study conflict resolution together. So the general question is, what can the U.S. and Georgia do together in that part of the conflict? Thank you. It's a very interesting question. First of all, U.S. is doing already a lot by, through participation in Geneva international discussions at a very high level, which is very important for leading successfully these talks. And I can say that several recent rounds were more or less successful. At least it did not end up with work out of the participants of these discussions. And we have some progress through re-establishing conflict and problem prevention mechanisms in the Gali districts of Abkhazia. I can only say that there are different ways to help Georgia to rebuild these relations. And again, building peaceful Georgia, attractive Georgia for our Abkhazian and Asetian citizens is a way, is the most important and most productive way to reconcile these conflicts. And I think U.S. is helping a lot Georgia to improve the country, to improve the living conditions of Georgian citizens, to make Georgia more attractive for Abkhazians and South Asetians. But it cannot happen automatically because during these years the trust was lost. We need to admit mistakes from both sides. Unfortunately, we went too far. We could have taken more decisive steps during these 25 years. And unfortunately this did not happen because this was very sensitive issue internally for Georgia and there was no progress during these 25 years. Now we need to, and we are drafting peace roadmap for which we need to first of all consolidate opinion in the society, in internally in the society in Georgia, among Georgians, and after this put this roadmap forward for discussion with our Abkhazian and South Asetian citizens. I am cautiously optimistic that we can reach progress. We can observe Abkhazians crossing ABL to attend Interpolisi football final last year. We observe so-called MacDonald diplomacy close to the ABL in several kilometers from ABL where we have Abkhazian representatives. We have representatives of young generation coming and talking at the patio with their Georgian peers. So this is not enough of course. We need to make decisive, brave steps in order to improve the chemistry, people-to-people chemistry. We are determined to compare very attractive road map for our citizens in Abkhazia and South Asetian. Prime Minister, another conflict in the South Caucasus region of course is Nagorno-Karabakh. And Georgia, as I understand it, has offered to be of assistance in trying to resolve that. The conflict has tapped down a bit, but that was a constructive offer that Georgia made. Thoughts on that conflict? Well first of all we are very concerned with the tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh because it can destabilize not only Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it can destabilize the whole region and even the wider Caucasus region. I made statement expressing hopes that with the involvement of representatives of international community and politicians we will be able to cool down this conflict and to decrease the tensions. And fortunately we have some de-escalation recently, but of course this is not enough. This conflict needs a long-term solution and there is means format that does not reach any important results. And what we could do in that difficult moment just to offer Georgia as a venue for discussions of long-term solutions for this conflict. Fortunately again tensions are down a little bit today. We hope very much that it will not aggravate in the next days and in the future because again it can destabilize the whole region. There are Russian commitments to Armenia in case it goes beyond Nagorno-Karabakh. There are Turkish commitments to Azerbaijan and you can imagine how disastrous it can be if this conflict goes further and further. Prime Minister, you have mentioned, Nancy mentioned, the senator mentioned 25 years of independence anniversary. There is another anniversary of today. 30 years ago it was the Chernobyl explosion. And you have mentioned Ukraine, others have mentioned Ukraine here today. Georgia has played a role in political developments in Ukraine and indeed in the reform attempts at Ukraine. Georgia has a problem with occupied territories. Ukraine has a problem with occupied territories. What lessons do Georgians have for Ukrainians as they face similar threats, similar challenges? Well first of all I would like to confirm that Georgia stays very supportive to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. We extended different types of support including humanitarian aid from the very beginning of military clashes in Donetsk and of course we made a number of condemning statements after Crimea occupation. Lesson that we learned from the history is staying consistent where you are and staying consistent with your goals of developing country and developing internally the country towards higher democratic standards is a remedy against everything. If you compromise, if you make some compromise in territorial integrity, in your foreign policy aspirations, if you make compromises in democracy development within the country in fighting corruption, this works on the hands of occupants of course. And of course there should be consistency and there should be will to change the country. And this is lesson that we learned. We hope very much that Ukraine stays engaged in Eastern partnership format. Ukraine stays engaged in its reforms towards EU. And we are very glad to hear recent statements about fulfillment of liberal visa liberalization and a technical assignment by Ukraine. So we are very supportive to Ukraine and we hope very much that we will remain in the same club towards Europe together. Prime Minister you mentioned elections coming up. We have elections coming up of course. One of the questions here says that polling in Georgia shows unemployment and the economy or vote are the main voter concerns as you approach these elections. How will the Georgian dream political party convince the electorate that it would address these issues after losing support? And a related question has to do with the Rostavi 2 television, which is part of the democratic openness, the transparency that you addressed as well. Thank you very much. First of all on job creation. The 4.34 agenda first of all that I mentioned is designed directly for job creation, towards job creation. Education system to make it more need based, to place more emphasis on professional education, to engage private sector in education projects is something that directly plays on the hands of job creation process. Startup financing facilities, liberalizing further tax system where we are introducing Estonian type of taxing where there will be no profit tax if the earnings are invested, reinvested. It means that only distributed earnings will be taxed. It means that we are consolidating internal investment resources and at the same time creating a success story to be sold outside of Georgia for attracting foreign direct investments. And Georgia stays one of the most open economies in the region. Georgia has excellent potential for becoming a trade and logistics hub regionally. We see more and more international companies opening representative offices in South Caucasus in Georgia in Tbilisi, which means that Georgia is on the right way. We have a slight decrease of unemployment rate in Georgia. And of course we will continue these important reforms, including upgrading and modernizing Georgia's infrastructure to increase transit flow through Georgia, which of course will create additional jobs. During the recent years we came up with important initiatives such as producing Georgia, such as various incentive projects for agriculture, which of course turned out to be very successful. And of course we will continue that project. But most importantly, the governance reform that I mentioned, and making a major shift within the mentality of the government officials to make government more service-oriented, to eliminate further any barriers for getting services from the government and to make it user-friendly and to make it inclusive. And recently we created investor council. We have World Bank, EBRD, IFC, American Chamber of Commerce, all major business association leaders sitting at this council discussing all the upcoming changes in legislation so that there are no negative surprises for business communities. So all these changes of course will dramatically improve business climate in Georgia. And it is already very favorable, but of course there is room for improvement always. And I think that by conducting these important reforms, we will create Georgia as an important place, attractive place for investments. And there is no other way. There is no room for Georgia for becoming protectionist. There is no room for Georgia to close the borders for imports. We are 4 million population country. The only thing we need to do is provide good climate to provide protection for our exporters and to provide excellent doing business climate for any international investor. To promote our free agreement with European Union countries, to attract investment from regional countries, from Gulf region in order to create enterprises for further exporting goods and services to Europe. So this is basically what we are doing. But for all these to be efficient, we need security, we need democracy, we need rule of law in the country. And these are of course one of the most important issues in our agenda. Prime Minister, we are out of time. You have given us a great description of both the challenges and the way forward in Georgia. We want to thank you very much. You said you wanted to lift our spirits. Well, you have done that. Thank you. Please join me in thanking the Prime Minister of Georgia. Thank you.