A member of the "Georgian Dream", Ilia Tsulaia, in his speech in the Parliament of Georgia stated: "We have quite weak regulations of business control and Georgia is one of the world’s leading nations in that regard."

FactCheck verified the accuracy of Ilia Tsulaia’s statement based on indexes of the Economic Freedom and Global Competitiveness as well as Doing Business

ranking.

According to Heritage Foundation’s report, Georgia occupies 13^th place among the countries with free economies in the world, whilst it is number five in Europe, which is a high ranking position and indicates that the country’s economy is mostly free. For more clarity, in the same ranking Armenia is 33^rd, Turkey is 60^th, Azerbaijan is 68^th, Russia is 111^th and Ukraine is 166^th. Heritage Foundation measures economic freedom of the countries based on four benchmarks, including regulatory efficiency. The latter is further composed by three sub-categories and assesses the countries’ performance in terms of business freedom, labour freedom and monetary freedom. Of 186 nations in the world, Georgia is ranked 16^th in terms of business freedom criterion (87.2 points out of 100 points), 25^th in terms of labour freedom (75.9 points out of 100 points) and 96^th

in terms of monetary freedom (78.2 points out of 100 points).

Georgia holds 59^th position in the Global Competitiveness ranking. One of the ranking’s criteria is a burden of government regulation in a given country. Of 138 countries, Georgia is ranked 8^th in that component. In terms of government regulatory burden Azerbaijan is ranked 17^th, Armenia is ranked 42^nd, Turkey is ranked 71^st, Ukraine is ranked 74^th and Russia is ranked 103^rd. Of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking Georgia occupies 16^th position, which shall also be considered as a good performance. The ranking assesses ease of doing business (three phases: starting a business, management of business and close of business) for entrepreneurs based on 11 components under the existing government regulations. Georgia is ranked third after Macedonia and Latvia in Europe and Central Asia Region. In the same ranking, Armenia occupies 38^th position, Russia 40^th, Azerbaijan 68^th, Turkey 69^th and Ukraine 80^th.

Conclusion FactCheck

used Economic Freedom and Global Competitiveness indexes, as well as Doing Business ranking to verify the accuracy of Ilia Tsulaia’s statement. All three source illustrate that Georgia has less than average business regulatory burden and is ranked as one of the world’s leading country in that regard.

Based on the undertaken analysis, FactCheck concludes that Ilia Tsulaia’s statement is TRUE.