The Georgian Ministry of Justice has signed a memorandum with the Hedera platform to assess the possibilities of using blockchain in government services, including the possible migration of data from the National Agency of Public Registry to a distributed network.
Minister of Justice Paata Salia met with representatives of Hedera to discuss areas of cooperation. According to the ministry, the transfer of data from the National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR) to the blockchain platform is being studied. This decision should strengthen the protection of property rights and increase the transparency and reliability of state registries.
Representatives of the department presented Hedera with the current NAPR smart contract service and its future prospects. Among the areas being considered is the tokenization of real estate, in which physical objects are converted into digital tokens. The ministry noted that the next step will be the creation of joint working groups with the participation of specialists from the Ministry of Justice and NAPR to develop technical cooperation with Hedera.
NAPR began using blockchain technologies back in 2016, when, in partnership with the private sector, it implemented a pilot project to use distributed ledgers in the land registration system. This project did not replace the existing registry, but supplemented it: data was recorded in a private permitted blockchain and закреплялись in the public Bitcoin network using a digital timestamp. The mechanism allowed citizens to verify the authenticity of land certificates and real estate transactions.
Thanks to these reforms, Georgia has become one of the leaders in ease of property registration: in the World Bank Doing Business 2016 ranking, the country took third place. Later, NAPR launched the Smart Contract service, which allows citizens of Georgia from anywhere in the world to remotely execute and register purchase and sale transactions and mortgage agreements on real estate. The service is based on electronic identification with AI integration, and the average processing time is about 30 minutes.
