Tariel Vasadze

Who is Tariel Vasadze?

Tariel Shakrovych Vasadze is a Ukrainian businessman of Georgian descent, chairman and main shareholder of the UkrAVTO JSC and UkrAVTO Group. He was the chief executive of UkrAVTO since 1983, leading this once state-owned company through privatization and restructuring to a role of Ukraine's main automobile manufacturer, servicer and importer. Later Vasadze's business was diversified by entering the insurance market. His wealth was estimated in 2007 at being around US$ 780 million. But because car sales in Ukraine during 2009 fell by 72 percent his wealth was late 2010 estimated at US$ 230 million.

Vasadze participates in Ukrainian politics, first as an advisor to Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh in 2002. Also in 2002 he was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada for For United Ukraine. Then he joined six factions and/or parliamentary groups: including the For United Ukraine faction, Labour Ukraine and Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine. His main and open political goal is to lobby the interests of automotive industry, particularly to protect and harmonize the business conditions for both the local manufacturers and the importers. In 2005 Vasadze became a member of Batkivschyna and thus part of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. During the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections, he was elected as a deputy to the Verkhovna Rada for this bloc. On December 2, 2010 Vasadze was excluded from the BYuT faction immediately after he voted for a new tax code as proposed by President Viktor Yanukovych. Early September 2011 Vasadze joined the Party of Regions faction. In 2012 he was re-elected into parliament on the party list of Party of Regions.