A number of bilateral meetings with the representatives of the central and local authorities took place in Tbilisi on 1-2 February 2016.

The series of meetings were initiated and supported by the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and targeted elaboration of concrete steps in developing bilateral co-operation activities within the implementation of objectives of the Programme "Strengthening institutional frameworks for local governance 2015-2017" under the Programme Cooperation Framework for Eastern Partnership countries (PCF).

The Council of Europe delegation was given an opportunity to discuss various options and modalities of further co-operation in the area of inter-municipal co-operation and local finance benchmarking.

The Georgian authorities, mayors of selected cities, including Mayor of Tbilisi, expressed their interest in such co-operation and the possible options for piloting IMC and LFB in Georgia will now be considered by both central and local authorities with an aim to start piloting of those activities already by mid-2016.

Bilateral activities will take full account of the relevant recommendations made in the LFB and IMC studies that were prepared by the joint team of national and international experts in 2015.