Tbilisi - Georgia's former Economy Minister and businessman Kakha Bendukidze has died at the age of 58 after undergoing heart surgery at a Swiss clinic two weeks ago, Georgian media reported.
He died at a hotel in London.
Bendukidze ran a number of businesses in Russia from the late 1980s to 2004. He also held the post of general director of the United Heavy Machine Plants holding.
In 2004, Georgia’s then President Mikheil Saakashvili offered Bendukidze the post of economy minister in his government. Bendukidze also served as Georgia’s state minister for economic reforms coordination from 2004 to 2008 and headed the Georgian government’s secretariat from 2008 to 2009. In 2007, he founded the Free University of Tbilisi and Georgian Agrarian University.
In May 2014, Bendukidze accepted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s invitation to become a member of the Ukrainian government’s Economic Council.
