PREVIEW: Georgia seeks billion-dollar shot in the arm in Brussels

Oct 20, 2008, 1:02 GMT

Brussels - Georgia is hoping for a billion-dollar shot in the arm on Wednesday when representatives of 67 nations and financial institutions gather in Brussels for a one-day donors' conference.

After August's war between Russia and Georgia, Western nations vowed to help Georgia rebuild its battered economy and take care of the thousands of people displaced in the five-day conflict.

The EU's executive, the European Commission, has already said that it will pledge up to 500 million euros (672 million dollars) in aid until 2010. It is now set to chair, jointly with the World Bank, an international conference aimed at boosting that sum.

At a meeting with commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso last Tuesday, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that he 'hoped it would be possible to mobilize twice that sum' in pledges at the conference.

According to a study by the United Nations and World Bank, Georgia will need an estimated 3.2 billion dollars in extra aid until 2011 if it is to look after people displaced by the conflict and bring its economy and national budget back to an even keel.

This winter alone, it will need some 900 million dollars, mainly to look after the estimated 64,000 people displaced from the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the surrounding area, the study says.

A total of 67 countries and organizations are set to attend the conference, which is to be co-hosted by the French and Czech governments as the current and impending holders of the EU's rotating presidency.

Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze is also set to attend the conference, officials in Brussels said.