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Georgia Industry
In 1990 about 20 percent of Georgia's 1,029 industrial
enterprises, including the largest, were directly administered by
the central ministries of the Soviet Union. Until 1991 Georgian
industry was integrated with the rest of the Soviet economy.
About 90 percent of the raw materials used by Georgian light
industry came from outside the republic. The Transcaucasian
Metallurgical Plant at Rustavi and the Kutaisi Automotive Works,
as well as other centers of heavy industry, depended heavily on
commercial agreements with the other Soviet republics. The
Rustavi plant, for example, could not operate without importing
iron ore, most of which it received (and continues to receive)
from Azerbaijan. The Kutaisi works depended on other republics
for raw materials, machinery, and spare parts. Georgia
contributed significantly to Soviet mineral output, particularly
of manganese (a component of steel alloy found in the Chiatura
and Kutaisi regions in west-central Georgia) and copper.
In the late 1980s, Georgia's main industrial products were
machine tools, prefabricated building structures, cast iron,
steel pipe, synthetic ammonia, and silk thread. Georgian
refineries also processed gasoline and diesel fuel from imported
crude oil. Georgian industry made its largest contributions to
the Soviet Union's total industrial production in wool fabric,
chemical fibers, rolled ferrous metals, and metal-cutting machine
tools (see
table 18, Appendix).
Data as of March 1994
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