01 June 2004 11:52
Georgia`s new tycoon economics minister: biography
Tbilisi, 1 June: The Russian-based businessman Kakha Bendukidze has been appointed Georgia's economics minister,
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania announced at a briefing today. He said Bendukidze's appointment had been
agreed with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
"He is a world-class economist," the prime minister commented. "Bendukidze has good relations with all
the top international economic centres."
Bendukidze is the general director of the Russian joint-stock company United Machine-Building Plants (Uralmash-Izhora
group).
Asked whether Bendukidze planned to invest his own capital into the Georgian economy, Zhvania replied: "A
minister cannot invest his own capital in enterprises which come under his jurisdiction, of course."
Speaking about the Georgian-Russian economic forum in Tbilisi [28-29 May], Mikheil Saakashvili described Bendukidze
as "a real Georgian patriot".
Bendukidze was born in Tbilisi on 20 April 1956. He graduated from the biology faculty at Tbilisi State University
(1977) and did post-graduate work at the biology faculty at Moscow's Lomonosov State University (1980). Between
1981 and 1985 he worked as a senior laboratory assistant and scientific research assistant in the USSR Academy of
Sciences Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms. In 1985 he took up the post of head of the
molecular genetics laboratory at the USSR Ministry of the Medical Industry Scientific Research Institute of
Biotechnology. In 1988 he was instrumental in setting up the Bioprotsess association, which he became head of in
1990.
In 1992 he became head of the board of directors of Promtorgbank [Industrial and Trade Bank]. In 1993 he took up the
post of chief director of NIPEK, the national oil investment and industry Eurasian corporation. At the end of 1993, he
joined [Ivan] Kivelidi in setting up the Russian Business Round Table.
On 4 May 1995 he was made a member of the Uralmash joint-stock company board of directors, then became board
chairman. On 1 June 1998 he was appointed general director of the Urals Machine-Building Plants, which meant that his
duties as chairman of the board of directors automatically came to an end.
In December 1998 he was elected onto the board of directors o the Izhora Plants joint-stock company, the major
shareholder of which is Uralmash Plants. In 1999 he became chairman of the board of directors of the Izhora Plants
joint-stock company.
Since June 2000 he has been general director of the joint-stock company United Machine-Building Plants
(Uralmash-Izhora group). On 26 July 2000 he was also appointed general director of Uralmash joint-stock company, which
is part of the United Machine-Building Plants (Uralmash-Izhora group) holding.
[Interfax news agency] |
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