Members of the Working Group on Strengthening Efficiency and Transparency and Promoting Innovative Technologies under the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance met with private sector representatives. The purpose of the meeting was to receive feedback from and deepen cooperation with the private sector. The meeting was organized with support from the EUvand UNDP Georgia, in cooperation with IDFI.

The meeting was opened by Irina Pruidze, Chairperson of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance. Pruidze spoke about Georgia's achievements in terms of legislative openness and the future plans of the Parliament of Georgia in this regard. She also highlighted the commitments under the Open Parliament Action Plan for 2018-2019, which aim to institutionalize the involvement of the private sector in parliamentary processes.

“The goal of our working group is to support the openness of the Parliament through dialogue with the private sector and to create formats for better communication with the private sector and its involvement in parliamentary processes and decision-making”, - Irina Pruidze.

“Much of the legislation adopted by the Parliament effects the private sector; because of this, based on the initiative of the American Chamber of Commerce, private sector related commitments were included in the open parliamentary action plan”, - Tamar Chugoshvili, First Deputy Chairperson of Parliament and Head of the Working Group on Strengthening Efficiency and Transparency and Promoting Innovative Technologies.

“The 3^rd Open Parliament Action Plan includes a commitment to create a registry of stakeholders to be published on the Parliament website in order to ensure their involvement in legislative processes. This meeting is a good opportunity to build cooperation that will enable you to have more information and us to take your opinions into consideration”, - Tamar Chugoshvili. Another commitment in the action plan envisions creating a registry of lobbyist organizations that will be published on the Parliament website.

Meeting participants had a chance to offered their feedback. Members of the Permanent Council on Open Governance and private sector representatives agreed that cooperation would continue and that similar meetings will be held in the future as well.