Scotland Yard officials are joining the search for the Welsh banking expert abducted at gunpoint in Georgia.

Peter Shaw, 57, was dragged from his car by an armed gang near his home in the former Soviet republic's capital Tbilisi on Tuesday, hours before he was due to return to the UK.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has pledged 15,000 lari, or �5,000, reward for information about his whereabouts.

Facts: Peter Shaw

Originally from: Maesteg Lives: Cowbridge Currently: EC Tacis project, Georgia Previously: Midland Bank manage Kidnapped: 18 June

Earlier this week, Mr Shevardnadze - a personal friend of Mr Shaw - hinted Mr Shaw from Cowbridge could soon be free.

But his employers the European Union and his family back in south Wales remains anxious, having received no word from the Abgrobiznesbank project director.

EU commissioner Chris Patten has urged the country's government to step up efforts to trace his abductors.

Mission from UK

Mr Shaw, who was working as a project director for Abgrobiznesbank under an EU scheme, had been based in Tiblisi for six years and had previously worked elsewhere in eastern Europe.

The British Embassy in Tbilisi said UK police specialists were to fly to Georgia from London "in the near future," according to the Russian Tass news agency.

It gave no other indication of the timescale of the mission.

President Eduard Shevardnadze demanded swift action

Mr Shaw was helping to run the bank under a European Commission-sponsored development programme in the region and had just a day left on his contract.

He was kidnapped hours before he had planned to fly home to the UK on Thursday, family members said.

An armed group dressed in fake security uniform demanded Mr Shaw follow their car, but genuine police officers turned up as he began to resist their moves.

But then, a third car carrying men in camouflage pulled up and opened fire on the officers with automatic weapons, leaving the gang to snatch the key businessman off the street.

It is the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreign nationals in Georgia.

'Still alive'

President Shevardnadze said Thursday there was "information warranting the expectation that Peter Shaw will be freed."

And Georgian Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili told a television channel in the country Thursday the former Midland Bank manager was alive.

He said he did not believe "physical elimination" was the kidnappers' goal.

But the kidnappers had not yet contacted authorities with any demands.

The Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office are investigating the case. The Security Ministry is providing investigators with intelligence.

Twice divorced, Mr Shaw - originally from Maesteg - took early retirement as a Midland Bank manager six years ago, then worked in Azerbaijan and Hungary.

He has three children - Lisa, 30, Rhodri, 29, and Philip, 26.

He had been in Georgia since 1996 and was appointed team leader in 1999, said an EC spokeswoman for his Tacis programme, which gives loans to the agriculture sector.