On March 12 ISET hosted a presentation by Jean-Marc Stavroulakis, Country Finance Manager of Carrefour Georgia, and Petr Dlouhy, Merchandise Manager of the Fresh Division of Carrefour. The main points of the presentation were Carrefour’s market strategy to overcome existing socio-economic obstacles to the development of effective value chains in the Georgian agricultural sector for 2014.

Over the winter holidays, I had the leisure to read the book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson (Crown Business 2012, 544 pages, Hardcover $20.00). Both authors are very eminent – one would not be surprised if Acemoglu, a Turkish-born Armenian and the most frequently cited contemporary economist, would receive the Nobel Prize in economics somewhere down the road.

This project aims to support the development of business-oriented small farmer groups (e.g., agricultural cooperatives) with the goals of increasing agricultural productivity and reducing rural poverty in Georgia.

When I think about the lack of human capital in Georgian agriculture, I am reminded of the 1997 Georgian movie “The Turtle Doves of Paradise”, directed by Goderdzi Chokheli. In a Soviet village, an ex-priest decides to teach basic knowledge to old peasants. He wants them to learn to read, write, and elementary calculations skills.

After reaching negative growth in June 2013 the y-o-y growth of real GDP started to improve slowly and already in November 2013 the growth rate catches up to its previous 2011-2012 higher numbers. According to the GeoStat primary estimations, the average growth rate of the previous three months (November, December 2013, and January 2014) is approximately 8.1% (see Chart 1).