Georgia: Does the BTC Pipeline Promote Hoped-For Local Economic Growth?

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has repeatedly portrayed the pipeline as a catalyst for prosperity. In a late 2003 speech, for example, Saakashvili played up BTC's power to improve the everyday lives. "Projects of this kind will serve the interests of each Georgian citizen and not the particular clans, as it was before," Saakashvili told business executives at that time.

Now that BTC has a track record, economists and Georgian NGO activists have looked at the results and some say that few benefits have trickled down to the population. According to Michael Schmidt, an economic expert for the Georgian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center (GEPLAC), although the BTC project injected huge sums into the Georgian budget, the actual long-term impact could be negligible. "BTC is not