It is always a cause for celebration whenever a member of the ISET community – be they student or faculty – achieves new success, but this month has borne witness to some unprecedented good news. Professor Daniel Levy, who has visited ISET as a visiting professor every year since 2011 and is one of the institute's most loyal friends, has been elected as the 26th President of the Israeli Economics Association.

ISET’s Irakli ‘Rati’ Kochlamazashvili, the deputy head of the Agricultural Policy Research Center, has been awarded the prestigious MASHAV Scholarship to attend the “Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics – Changes in the Era of Globalization” program conducted by the International School of Agricultural Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Robert H. Smith, Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Environment.

According to NBG, the volume of total remittances to Georgia amounted to 1,379 million USD in 2017, a 19.8% YoY increase. The recovery of remittances is a clear sign that the economies of Georgia’s partner countries continue to improve. All top source countries of money inflows to Georgia showed a notable increase: Russia (+15.4% YoY), Italy (+17.9% YoY), the United States (+11.2% YoY), and Greece (+13.4% YoY).

Back in October 2014, soon after the introduction of new visa regulations by the Georgian government, I visited Seoul, the capital of South Korea. An unpleasant surprise awaited me on the way back home at the Seoul airport. The young stewardess checked my (Israeli) passport and informed me that, according to the system, I will not be allowed to board the flight (to Istanbul) unless I show a Georgian residence card or buy a return ticket.

A year ago, in March 2014, I was invited to speak at an Israeli-Georgian innovation forum, organized by the Israeli embassy. For a number of reasons, I chose 1977 as the starting point of my presentation. One of these was personal – my family immigrated to Israel from St.Petersburg, Russia, in that year. But, more importantly, Israel of 1977 is in many ways (though not in all) comparable to Georgia of today.