The Union "CENTURY 21"

Business Development

The protection of consumer from useless, dangerous for health products and services is one of the main concerns of the modern world. The consumers rights protection stays vulnerable both in developed and developing countries. Of course, the level of the problem, its scales and efforts for its solution varies from country to country. In developed countries the protection of consumers rights stays as the concern at all levels, while in Georgia it is being considered as second level problem.

The government does not pay necessary attention to the problem; moreover, it is considered just as a part of other issues such as: business liberalization, health protection, agriculture development and etc. The situation is aggravated by the lack of awareness on consumers rights, about possible dangers and opportunities as well as the lack of respective legislature.

Our conducted work, gained experience and the collected facts over years as well as the results of regular monitoring indicate the importance of the issue and set the problem of immediate solution.

The Consumers Rights Protection Programme became the permanent division at the Union "Century 21" since 1999. Currently it covers two main topics: business development support and consumers awareness raising.

The programme is aimed at the following purposes:

To assist the harmonization of national legislature with western legal standards (WTO requirements), as well as the reforming of relevant governmental structures.
To create the comprehensive picture of the consumer market of Georgia
To cooperate with entrepreneurs for searching effective ways of problem solution.
To increase the knowledge and legal awareness of population about their consumer rights.
To establish an innovative mechanism of influence on stakeholders: population/consumers as initiators, non-governmental sector as a moderator in their relations with entrepreneurs and the governmental structures.

Initiatives

The programme works on legislative initiatives related to the business development and consumers rights protection in Georgia. The working group within this programme was the initiator of the amendments to the existing Law of Georgia Concerning Consumers Rights Protection.

Situational Overview - Report

Legislative Overview - Report

International conference "The Consumers' Rights Protection in Georgia: Challenges and Possibilities" was held on 14 March, 2005 at the hotel Tbilisi Marriott with support of the Eurasia Foundation. The conference was attended by the representatives of governmental and non-governmental sector, international organisations and academia.
At the conference as key-note speakers were invited international experts from Germany and Ireland.

On 20 March, 2005, at the hotel "Sheraton Metekhi Palace" the United States Agency for International development (USAID) - funded Georgia Enterprise Growth Initiative (GEGI) organized Grant Award Ceremony. GEGI supported organisations in grants to advance private sector policy reforms and improve the business environment in Georgia. Among the winning orgnisations was The Union "CENTURY 21" with the project "The Protection of Consumers' Rights: Challenges and Opportunities"

cooperation

Relations with State Structures - Currently almost all governmental structures are under ongoing reforms and it is very important to implement these reforms successfully. The Union "Century 21" actively takes place in reforming processes of relevant state structures within the working groups at the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Health Care and Social Security of Georgia.

International institutions - The programme cooperates with the experts from international organisations and projects such as: TACIS, WTO, WHO and Greenpeace.

Activities

From July 2006 to January 2007 the Union “Century 21” with support of BP-PTC and GTZ is implementing project "Business Development Programme - Borjomi".

From October, 2006 The Union “Century 21” with support of "Eurasia" South Caucasus Cooperation Programme and USAID is implementing regional project "Public Initiative for Raising of Food safety in the South Caucasus".

The second training course “Launching the Entrepreneurial Activities for Fruit Production and Processing" was implemented in Batumi on 10 March, 2006.

In cooperation with the USAID-AgVANTAGE has been started a long-term training course for the farmers and local businessmen.

The project "The Protection of Consumers' Rights: Challenges and Opportunities"

The Project "For the Protection of Consumers' Rights"

The Project "Public Education on Safety of Food Products in Frontier Regions"

The Project "Independent control over ecological cleanness and safety of foodstuffs"

The Project "The Movement of Consumers of the South Caucasus"

In November, 2000, with support of the Eurasia Foundation was implemented the contact making meeting among the leading consumers organizations from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Results of the Recent Market Monitoring in 2005

Bread
Butter
Sausages
Beverage
Infant food
Meat products