Roman Gotsiridze (; born on December 16, 1955) is a Georgian economist and politician. He served as a member of Parliament in 1990–1992, 1992, 2004–2005, and 2016–2024, as well as Deputy Prime Minister in 1992–1993 and President of the National Bank of Georgia in 2005–2007.
One of Georgia's longest-standing politicians, Roman Gotsiridze first joined the country's Supreme Council during the first post-Soviet elections of 1990, being elected as Representative of the Didube District as a member of People's Front, and was a signatory of the April 1991 declaration of independence. After the government's overthrow in 1992, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Tengiz Sigua and was put in charge of the government's economic portfolio. His term was marked by an economic collapse caused by the fall of the USSR and the Georgian Civil War and Gotsiridze secured Georgia's first international loans and rolled out the kuponi, the first national currency.
In opposition to the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze, he joined the Republican Party and was elected to Parliament in 2004 after the Rose Revolution. A year later, he was appointed as President of the National Bank of Georgia, focusing his term on increasing foreign currency reserves, increasing international banking presence in Georgia, fighting off the growing Russian financial presence in Abkhazia, and curtailing inflation. His failure to keep the inflation rate below 10% has been attributed as a reason behind his resignation in 2005.
In 2016, Roman Gotsiridze returned to the political scene by being elected to the Parliament as a member of the United National Movement. When the party split following the creation of European Georgia, he became the leader of UNM's parliamentary faction, making him the highest-ranking opposition leader in the legislature. He oversaw his party's struggle against the Georgian Dream-led government, including in its response to the adoption of a new constitution in 2018, the 2019-2020 political crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He was reelected to Parliament in 2020 but refused to accept his seat and boycotted the legislature until May 2021.
In February 2023, he left UNM and has since remained as an independent MP.
Biography Early life and education Roman Gotsiridze was born on December 16, 1955, in Gali, a town in the then-Abkhaz ASSR. He was enrolled in 1974 for his compulsory military service in the Soviet Army and became an Industry Planning student at Tbilisi State University, from which he graduated in 1982. After graduating, he worked in the staff of TSU, before becoming a docent in the university's Department of Industry and Agricultural Economy in 1989. He is a Doctor of Economic Sciences.
Though joining the political sphere in 1990, Gotsiridze remained closely tied with the academic field and continued teaching at TSU until 1995. Since 2014, he has been a professor of economics at the International Black Sea University. He also briefly served as President of the Economic Freedom and Private Property League of Georgia, a free market NGO, as well as chairman of the Supervisory Board of the investment hedge fund Georgian Capital in 1995-1996.
Early political career During the 1990 legislative election, Georgia's first multiparty and free election since 1919, Roman Gotsiridze co-founded the Democratic Center, an anti-Communist political organization. He ran for the Didube Majoritarian District, defeating the Communist Party nominee. A member of the Supreme Council, he was one of the signatories of the Act of Restoration of Independence of April 9, 1991, and sat in independent Georgia's first Parliament. During his term, he often found himself opposed to other MPs because of his free market positions, including supporting privatizations, while the nationalist government of Gamsakhurdia supported a more centralized, state-run economy. On January 2, 1992, the Supreme Council was abolished during the 1991-92 Georgian coup d'état by the Military Council of the Republic of Georgia, which overthrew Gamsakhurdia. Gotsiridze was a member of the State Council of the Republic of Georgia which governed Georgia for several months after Gamsakhurdia's overthrow.
In the October 1992 parliamentary election organized by the new government of Eduard Shevardnadze, Roman Gotsiridze was once again elected through the electoral list of the October 11 Bloc, an opposition coalition led by Nodar Natadze. At that time, he aligned himself with Shevardnadze as the latter was facing the rising influence of Tengiz Kitovani and Jaba Ioseliani, two warlords responsible for the 1991-92 coup. On December 3, he was appointed as deputy prime minister in the cabinet of Tengiz Sigua, in charge of the country's struggling economic portfolio. As such, he faced a difficult situation with Georgia in the midst of a civil war and a chaotic socio-economic situation following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gotsiridze was notably in charge of overseeing the transfer of Soviet-era state-owned economic facilities to the Georgian government. He was a strong proponent of the price liberalization and privatizations and was regularly opposed by Avtandil Margiani, an influential fellow deputy prime minister in charge of supervising agricultural policy.
As Deputy Prime Minister, Roman Gotsiridze oversaw the creation of the kuponi, a temporary currency meant to replace the Russian ruble. Though the state had no existing foreign currency reserve, he secured a loan from the Dutch government to make the country's initial deposits for membership in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He was also involved in negotiations with Russia over a settlement of the war in Abkhazia.
Head of the Parliamentary Budget Office In 1998, Roman Gotsiridze was appointed Head of the Budget Office in Parliament by Speaker Zurab Zhvania. As such, he took a large role in writing the annual budget and his office served as a watchdog over the Ministry of Finance. He regularly criticized what he thought to be government waste, including the large budgets given to regulatory agencies. He was also opposed to the idea of creating a free trade zone in Adjara and regularly raised concerns about the Adjarian Autonomous Republic's lack of financial transfers to the central government. Often disagreeing with the government's own financial figures, he accused the Shevardnadze government of closing its eyes on a large network of tobacco smuggling that cost the Georgian state a large share of revenues.
Wary of Georgia's energy dependence on Russia, he was also reluctant to give credit to the Shevardnadze government for the South Caucasus Pipeline. He was critical of a 2002 bill that would have allowed the President to reschedule the debts of state-owned enterprises and called for drastic expenditure cuts to avoid IMF sanctions. He was also against a proposal by the government to audit civil society organizations and warned that American financial aid would be tied with democratic reforms.
Gotsiridze joined the National Movement upon the creation of the party by former Justice Minister Mikheil Saakashvili in 2001.
Chair of the Finance Committee Ahead of the 2003 parliamentary election, Roman Gotsiridze joined the Republican Party, a liberal political organization aligned with the National Movement (UNM), and was placed in 6th position on the opposition coalition's electoral list. Despite winning a seat in Parliament, massive voter fraud led to the Rose Revolution and the cancellation of the electoral results, while the National Movement gained power when Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president. In the repeat 2004 parliamentary polls, Gotsiridze was once again placed in the electoral list of UNM and won a seat in Parliament.
Known as a leading economic expert, the new government considered him to chair the Chamber of Control. In June 2004, when the Republican Party left the ruling coalition, Gotsiridze left the party and remained with the National Movement. Despite that, he was a critique of his fellow MPs for using their ties with the President to avoid public debates. In Parliament, he was Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee and worked extensively on adopting a balanced budget in 2004. He backed the government's proposal to drastically reduce taxes. However, he remained critical of some aspects of the new tax code, opposing the creation of a strong enforcement system and advocating for the abolition of the property tax. Though he was a supporter of privatizations, he found himself opposed to Economy Minister Kakha Bendukidze over the latter's plan of mass privatizations, including television towers and landing strips. In a list of privatization targets he drafted on behalf of the Finance Committee, he proposed the sale of the Batumi Seaport, the Poti Sea Port, the Chiatura mine and Rustavi Steel, along with 24 other targets.
Roman Gotsiridze was the sponsor of a 2005 financial amnesty bill that pardoned individuals accused of tax evasion during the Shevardnadze government. He called on the authorities to adopt a softer economic stance towards the separatist South Ossetia, opposing the permanent closure of the Ergneti Market in the conflict zone. On January 18, 2005, Gotsiridze was appointed by President Saakashvili as a member of his new nine-person Economic Council.
President of the NBG Roman Gotsiridze was appointed by President Saakashvili on March 18, 2005, as President of the National Bank of Georgia for a seven-year term, replacing the Shevardnadze-era Irakli Managadze. In charge of the country's monetary system, he sought to increase the National Bank's standing at the international level and cooperated closely with European institutions, including Germany's Deutsche Bundesbank, with which he negotiated a training program for NBG employees. His term was marked with the arrival on the Georgian market of several foreign banks, including Ukraine's PrivatBank, Azerbaijan's PASHABank, Switzerland's HSBC, and the Allied Irish Bank. He was more cautious than Bendukidze in supporting tax cuts, being advised by the IMF of promoting balanced budgets over tax cuts. During his term, the foreign currency reserves grew from 200 million USD to 1.4 billion USD.
Roman Gotsiridze actively worked to counteract Russia's growing financial influence over the separatist republic of Abkhazia, where close to 50 banks were allegedly involved in financial activities despite an international sanctions regime, along with Kyrgyz banks. In a speech in Moscow, he made a public appeal to his Russian counterpart Sergey Ignatyev to ask him to close down Russian monetary movement in Abkhazia and threatened him with appealing to the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. Though it was reported that Russia had curbed down its activities in Abkhazia following Gotsiridze's campaign, new reports revealed that Russian state and commercial banks had resumed their operations by 2007, although Kyrgyzstan had not. He also proposed a settlement where Russian banks would operate in Abkhazia through the NBG's regulatory control and also proposed the introduction of international banks into Abkhazia through the NBG's mediation, though these measures were rejected. When Russia's VTB Bank opened an ATM in Sokhumi to distribute Russian pensions, the NBG threatened the bank with the revocation of its license across Georgia.