Welcome. This is Anastasia Yuglova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

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The Cato Institute's Conference on Freedom, Commerce and Peace in Valiseie, Georgia

wraps up today after three days of lectures, talks, and seminars by policy makers, experts, scholars, and journalists from the

Confederation of Independent States and surrounding nations.

Joining me today over the phone is Cato's Tom Palmer, who is currently in to the E.C. attending the conference.

Why did Cato choose to host this conference in Georgia?

Well, there were a number of reasons.

One is that, though Americans may not view it quite that way,

Georgia is rather centrally placed given the range of

countries and issues that we were concerned with for your Asia. Right there in the

Southern Caucasus it's at the crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It's in fact relatively easy for many people

from the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and other countries

to get to.

And also we had a very, very good local partner at the New Economic School of Georgia

and the active support and participation of some of the liberal reformers, notably Khach of

Ben de Pidesa, the State Ministry for Coordination of Reforms in Georgia.

And can you share some of the highlights of the conference so far?

Well it's been, in my opinion, quite a success so far. We still have one more date to go.

But I think that the presentation on liberalization of trade and finance was really outstanding,

especially the presentation by Boris Begglevich of Serbia, which

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