Eagle Hills statistics silence critics: Georgian buyers account for majority of sales, PM Kobakhidze tells Parliament

“There has been no shortage of speculation, most of it centred on the unprecedented investment being made in Georgia by the company Eagle Hills,” said Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, addressing parliament under the interpellation procedure.

The Prime Minister was responding to a question about the potential migratory impact of the major real estate projects recently announced in Georgia.

“There has been no shortage of speculation, most of it centred on the unprecedented investment being made in Georgia by the company Eagle Hills. Approximately 16,000 flats are planned for sale under this project in Georgia, and the pre-sales have now concluded. The statistics we have in hand already demonstrate just how speculative the campaigns surrounding this investment project were. In total, 257 flats have been sold, and Georgian citizens purchased 147 of them. From the very beginning, we expected that more than half of the buyers would be Georgian citizens, and this has now been confirmed by the figures: 147 flats were bought by Georgian nationals, while foreigners purchased 110.

As for the much-trumpeted ‘Arabisation’. All the speculation revolved around that one term. This is rather typical of our radical opposition. They latch onto two words, give no thought whatsoever to the substance, and simply repeat those same two words on a loop. First, it was the ‘Russian law’, now it was ‘Arab cities’. Just as the Russian law campaign fell flat, so too has the Arab cities campaign, and with equal ease. The statistics speak for themselves: of those 257 flats, just 8 were purchased by citizens of Arab countries. You can see for yourselves what a grave risk of Arabisation our country faces.

That campaign collapsed from the very start, and its architects have tacitly acknowledged their own defeat. They have now pivoted to a new line: if it is Georgian citizens who are buying these flats, how, they ask, does USD 6.6 billion in investment actually enter Georgia? That is their question.

Just as the Arabisation campaign fell apart, so too will the campaign seeking to portray this investment as somehow illusory. In reality, USD 6.6 billion will be invested in Georgia, and just as all of this has been corroborated by sales statistics, it will eventually be confirmed by economic and budgetary data, which we will, without fail, share with the Georgian public on an annual basis.

As for the alleged impact of these projects and their construction on migration into Georgia, that is pure speculation. The short-term residence permit was also dragged into these claims. It was asserted that the moment a person purchases a property worth more than 150,000 in Georgia, they can immediately and effortlessly take up residence here. For one thing, this is a short-term residence permit with a maximum duration of one year, which is the first point. Secondly, and again, the statistics bear this out: fewer than 5,000 individuals hold a short-term residence permit obtained based on property purchase. How speculative these claims are is perfectly plain from the figures alone,” the Prime Minister declared.