Kacha Bendukidze

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Kacha Bendukidse (2014)

Kachaber "Kacha" Bendukidze ( Georgian კახა ბენდუქიძე ; born April 20, 1956 in Tbilisi ; † November 13, 2014 in London ) was a Georgian - Russian industrialist and politician ( non-party ). The former Russian oligarch was Minister of Economy, Industry and Trade of Georgia from June to December 2004. From December 2004 to December 2007 he was Minister of State for Economic Reform and Development. From January 2008 to February 2009 he was the head of the Georgian State Chancellery.

Life

biologist

Kacha Bendukidse was born the son of an ethnographer . As a child, he regularly took part in research trips to rural areas of western Georgia. In 1977 he graduated from Tbilisi State University with a degree in biology with honors, in the same year he switched to postgraduate studies at Moscow's Lomonosov University , which he graduated in 1980.

He then became an employee at the Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of the Soviet Academy of Sciences . From 1985 he headed the laboratory for molecular genetics and animal cells and founded the company Bioprocess in 1988. In 1989 he took over the management of the Department of Genetics and Selection at the Institute of Biotechnology of the Soviet Ministry of Medical Industry.

Entrepreneur

In 1990 Bendukidze switched to business. In 1991 he became head of the oil industry investor Nipek, in 1992 chairman of the board of directors of the Russian Promtorgbank and in 1994 chairman of the board of directors of the shipbuilding company Almasi.

In 1995 he acquired Uralmash , Russia's largest engineering plant in Yekaterinburg, and became its chairman. He then bought other companies from the former military- industrial complex of the Soviet Union, including the construction companies for nuclear power plants Izhora Zavodij ( Saint Petersburg ) and the shipyard of the Krasnoye Sormowo industrial complex in Nizhny Novgorod .

In 1996 he founded the holding company Vereinigte Maschinenbauwerke (Russian OMZ - Objedinennyje maschinostroitelnyje sawody ), and in 1998 became its general director. Bendukidze held the majority of the company's shares. In 1998 he owned around 50 companies in Russia, Ukraine , Romania and the USA . When OMZ acquired the only two Russian companies that build nuclear power plants abroad in 2003, he came into conflict with the government. Various authorities started investigations and increased controls.

In November 2003, Bendukidze sold OMZ to entrepreneur Vladimir Potanin . Since then he has withdrawn from business. He initially retained 42.16% of the OMZ shares and acquired 13% of the Poltanin Holding Interros. In November 2005 he parted with his OMZ share. He had the remaining shares administered by a trustee. In interviews he expressed his disappointment with the Russian economic development.

In 1993 and 1994, Bendukidze advised the Russian government in the Council for Industrial Policy and, together with the entrepreneur Iwan Kiwelidi, founded the Round Table of Entrepreneurship in Russia.

Politician

On June 1, 2004, Georgia's Prime Minister Zurab Schwania surprisingly nominated him as Georgia's new Minister of Economic Affairs. The very next day, Bendukidze took up his post. He called his economic policy orientation ultra-liberal. He declared war on the “Soviet mentality” in the economy. He wanted to work in Georgia for deregulation of the economy, extensive privatization , a reduction in corporate taxes and rapid economic growth . Bendukidze received Georgian citizenship in addition to his Russian citizenship.

On July 15, 2004, Bendukidze submitted a list of 372 state-owned enterprises and properties that are to be sold between 2004 and 2006. The State Mint, the Georgian Telekom, which stood at the top of the list Tbilisi airport , the ports of Poti and Batumi , aircraft and weapons factory Tbilaviamscheni and the iron and steel works Rustavi . Bendukidse's privatization policy sparked heated controversy in Georgia. Nationalist parties accused him of selling out the country and coined the term "bendunomics" for it. In July 2004 the minister was prevented from leaving his office by demonstrators. He was spat in the face and his company car was damaged.

On December 15, 2004, President Saakashvili appointed him Minister of State for structural economic reforms. There he concentrated on privatization, developed reform plans to deregulate and streamline state authorities. The World Bank report Doing Business , which measures the investment climate in over 100 countries around the world, attested to his success: at the end of his term as minister in 2007, Georgia was in 18th place, ahead of Germany and France . Three years earlier, Georgia was still in 137th place.

Since January 31, 2008, Bendukidze was the head of the Georgian State Chancellery. Prime Minister Nika Gilauri dismissed him on February 7, 2009. He did not publicly name reasons for this. It is known, however, that Bendukidze called Gilauri an "idiot" during a cabinet meeting in 2004. Bendukidze announced that he would in future devote more time to the European School of Management (ESM) in Tbilisi, in which he held shares.

death

Kacha Bendukidse died on November 13, 2014 at the age of 58 in a London hotel. There he was recovering from a stent- implant operation on his heart that he had undergone a week earlier in Zurich . According to his sister Nunu, he appeared to have died of heart failure.

Web links

Commons : Kacha Bendukidse  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ zeit.de: Former Georgian reform minister Bendukidze has died
  2. ^ Georgian Business Week: Bendukidze quits cabinet. Will his influence remain? (PDF; 50 kB), February 11, 2008
  3. ^ Civil Georgia: PM to Replace Chief of his Administration Bendukidze , Feb.7 , 2009
  4. ^ Civil Georgia: Bendukidze on his Dismissal , Feb. 8, 2009
  5. ↑ Godfather of Georgia's reforms dies at 58 ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , cnsnews.com, November 14, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cnsnews.com
  6. ↑ Georgia's flamboyant reformer Kakha Bendukidze dies , news.yahoo.com, November 14, 2014
  7. ↑ Kakha Bendukidze Dies at 58; Pushed Post-Soviet Market Change , nytimes.com, Nov 16, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Bendukidze, Kacha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES ბენდუქიძე, კახა (Georgian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Georgian entrepreneur and Minister of State
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Tbilisi
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 2014
Place of death London