President of the Republic of Abkhazia

April 16, 2015, Moscow. The meeting of the President of the Republic of Abkhazia Raul Khadzhimba with abkhaz public and students living in Moscow was conducted in the small hall of the Forum-hall. The Head of the Administration of the President Astamur Taniya, the Minister of foreign affairs Viacheslav Chirigba, the Ambassador of the Republic of Abkhazia in Russian Federation Igor Ahba, the head of Moscow abkhaz diaspora Beslan Agrba participated in the meeting. Around 250 people were the audience of the meeting.

The event was organized by the Moscow abhaz diaspora with the support of the Embassy of the Republic of Abkhazia in Russian Federation.

Opening the meeting Beslan Agrba expressed hope that the leadership of the state will be utilizing the potential of the diaspora living outside of Abkhazia. « Young people that study and live here and the older generation are always loyal to their country and could contribute to developent of the state », he added.

In the beginning of his speech, Raul Khadzhimba said that the unifictaion of the society despite their political views is a number one task. The President shared his opinion on the processes that are going on in Abkhazia, on socio-economic situation in the republic. We are working on creating the basis of our economy, our own budget amounts not more then 3 billion. But we have to actively work on replenishment of our own budget. I assigned the government a task to increase own profit budget. It is crucial to have an opportunity to increase the salaries of our citizens by our own means », noted the head of state.

Raul Khadjimba expressed his concern about the fact that some corruption shemes still exist in the country. « This is a major problem for small Abkhazia. And we do not hide this fact. We are doing everything possible to change this situation », added head of state. He also mentioned the issue of abkhaz-russian border and the threat of part of the society about the alleviation of its crossing. « Today we have warm and friendship relations with Russia and we should not fear the openness of the border. Our state does not cease to exist beacuse of that ».

A lot of questions were asked during the meeting. Mostly, people were interested in socio-economic development of the republic, investment cliamte, creation of conditions to bringback young proffesional to the Motherland, contacts with diaspora, issues of Abkhaz language development. Young people asked for assessment of May events of the past year, were interested in the process of constitutiona reform, asked whether new leadership has a real plan of economic development of the country.

« The issue of constitution reform is one of the most important ones to us. We do not refuse our readiness for it. I instructed to create the commission on constitution reform, which actively conducts its activities, we are preparing some legislation changes and one of the first steps is to give more authority to local self-enforcement bodies », said the President. Khadzhimba also talked on creating opportunities for attracting investment to Abhazia. « In order to make investors come to Abkhazia we need to create favorable climate, put anticorruption legislation to order. Invesment of our compatriots living abroud are also vital for us. We already created a floor – working group – which consists of the representatives of our diaspora, some major businessmen, which is working on their proposals on the issues of our interaction », he added.

In conclusion, the President expressed hope that young specialists woul return to their Motherland.