Minister of Finance
He joined the government of Eduard Shevardnadze in the capacity of Minister of Finance in May 2000. During these years, he was considered a member of a political team of young reformists headed by Zurab Zhvania and Mikheil Saakashvili and proved to be quite an effective minister.
In 2001, he left the President-run Union of Citizens of Georgia party which he had joined in 1995. He was sacked, in 2002, without explanation, though it appears that he had intended to resign in protest against the policies of Shevardnadze’s increasingly corrupted government (as the Minister of Justice Mikheil Saakashvili did a year before).
In a brief period of 2002-2003, he was involved in banking and investment ventures.
After Shevardnadze was ousted in the Rose Revolution of 21–23 November 2003, Noghaideli returned to government as the economic adviser to the acting president, Nino Burjanadze. He was re-appointed to his old post as Minister of Finance in February 2004 in the government of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania.
Read more about this topic: Zurab Noghaideli
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