February is usually a good time to take stock of the country’s economic performance because at the beginning of the month statistical agencies release data on many baseline indicators for the previous year. Preliminary data reveals that the annual GDP growth rate in 2014 was 4.7%, which fell short of the 5% that had been expected.

In February, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri fell to 3.29GEL, which is 3.4% lower month-on-month (compared to January 2015), and 4.8% lower year-on-year (compared to February 2014).

Unlike most commodities that are provided by private actors competing with each other, a currency is provided by a monopolist. The only institution that is allowed to produce laris is the National Bank of Georgia (NBG).

The recent bouts of sharp lari depreciation caused much anxiety among the Georgian population, prompting fears of inflation, loan defaults, and bank failures, on the one hand, and the typically Georgian political speculations over “who is to blame”, on the other.

In order to assess the effectiveness of the Agricultural Card Program, APRC conducted focus group discussions with farmers and individual interviews with input suppliers and machinery service providers from different regions of Georgia were conducted in order to assess the impact.