With its third and final reading, on May 5 Parliament passed legislative amendments allowing the government to issue permits creating “free tourist zones” in any part of the country.

Last October Parliament passed law exempting from profit and property taxes for next 15 years investors who will invest at least GEL 1 million in construction of hotels on 11.4 hectare plot of land in Kobuleti, Adjara Autonomous Republic on Black Sea coast.

In December the Parliament amended the law allowing a similar model, described as “free tourism zone”, for Anaklia, a village not far from the breakaway Abkhazia’s administrative border.

In further amendment, discussed and passed by lawmakers on May 5, the proposal offers to create a similar zone in Ganmukhuri, a village on the Abkhaz administrative border.

In addition, the recent amendment also gives the government authority to create such a zone in any other part of the country through its decree so as not to require further amendments to the law by Parliament in the future if the government decides to create free tourism zone in other locations.

Initially the law envisaged that an investor could buy a 0.2 hectare plot of land in the “free tourism zone” for a symbolic GEL 1; with the recent amendment this limit of 0.2 hectare has been removed.