According to the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, Levan Davitashvili, the new international airport will contribute to the development of Rustavi, while providing new employment opportunities for the population.

As Levan Davitashvili explained after the government meeting, the airport is not only an aviation service, each airport has many different auxiliary services that employ many people, be it technological or ordinary jobs.

"In terms of spatial development, the new territory will give us the opportunity to further develop Rustavi, new employment opportunities will appear for Rustavi's population. An airport is not only an aviation service. Each airport has many different services that employ many people, be it technological or ordinary jobs. I think this will be an additional plus. Finally, it will contribute to the formation of an important agglomeration between Tbilisi and Rustavi, including in terms of connectivity," Davitashvili said.

According to the minister, the project is so appropriate that they will be able to find financing through non-sovereign channels, without sovereign pressure.

"This is an investment project of more than one billion dollars. Two phases will cost up to 1 billion 200 million dollars. As we have estimated, among them, it has a significant economic effect, economic growth is accelerated by the development of new important infrastructure," the Minister noted.

According to him, they assume that flights from the new airport will be possible to be performed from the end of 2028.

"Our task is to have a perfect plan by the end of 2025, which will allow us to move to the construction stage. According to our estimate, it will take 3 years, by the end of 2028 we will be able to have a complete, modern, new infrastructure in order to make the first flights. As for management, we engaged an international consulting company that offered us an analysis of all the world's common models. Several options are clearly preferable in our conditions," the Minister noted.

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