According to Geostat, the 2019 real GDP growth in Georgia was 5.1% year-over-year (YoY). This figure moderately surpassed NBG’s, ADB’s, EBRD’s, IMF’s and the World Bank’s latest growth projections for 2019, which range from 4.5%-4.7%. However, the real winner in this race was ISET-PI’s annual GDP growth forecast; in May 2019, we predicted a 4.9% annual growth.

High and rising levels of foreign currency indebtedness have been an important topic in Georgia over the past several years. To address this issue and protect borrowers from currency risks, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), as well as the Georgian Government have implemented regulations to hinder excess indebtedness. Let’s have a look at the timeline (Figure 1) of recent lending regulations and the accompanying monetary policy measures and observe their impact on changing lending patterns in the Georgian economy.

In 2019, Georgian power plants generated 11,865 mln. kWh of electricity. This represents a 2% decrease in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2018, total generation was 12,149 mln. kWh) (Figure 1). The decrease in generation on a yearly basis comes from decrease in hydropower (-10%), more than offsetting the increase in thermal (+34%) and wind power generation (+0.5%).

Geostat has published its rapid estimate of real GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2019, and their estimated growth stands at 5.3%, which is 0.7 percentage points above ISET-PI’s most recent forecast. The real GDP growth rate reached 3.8% year-on-year for December 2019.

The emergence of GVC, global value chains, around more than two decades ago transformed the way economists think about countries’ comparative advantage and specialization in production. It has also transformed the understanding of what it takes for a country to be successfully integrated into world trade networks and derive maximum benefit from global trade.