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February 2016 Macro Review | The Georgian economy in 2015-2016 – take care of the foundations, and the facade will take care of itself…
22 February 2016

The year 2015 was one of turbulence. It was a year in which the institutional foundations of the Georgian economy were tested. However, as our analysis shows, the country’s macroeconomic institutions exhibited remarkable resilience in the face of various shocks. This bodes well for future growth prospects. Thus, in the spirit of Lewis Carroll’s adage “take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves” we can give one piece of advice to Georgian policymakers: take care of the foundations, and the facade will take care of itself.

According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP growth was 2.8% in 2015. This result exceeded the IMF’s 2% and the EBRD’s 2.3% growth projections from May 2015. The ISET-PI annual GDP growth forecast made in April 2015 was more optimistic. At that time, we predicted a 3.2% annual growth rate in the worst-case scenario and 4.3% in the best case. However, in September, as the main economic trends settled in, the ISET-PI GDP forecast predicted 2.9% year-on-year growth in 2015.

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