The report "Financial Soundness Indicators for Sector Stability in Georgia" provides an overview of the health of the Georgian financial sector and the key challenges it faces. Over the medium term, to increase domestic savings, reduce borrowing cost, and improve the credit risk, the report recommends facilitating property registration, improving the credit information-sharing mechanism, ensuring the security of bank deposits, and legislating improvements in reporting standards for firms.

Giving women voice in company management may prove beneficial for performance. For instance, according to an influential Catalyst report, The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards, “companies that achieve [gender] diversity and manage it well attain better financial results, on average, than other companies.”

After relatively high GDP growth in February and March, the Georgian economy slowed down considerably in April. According to Geostat’s rapid estimates, GDP grew by only 0.9% annually in the reporting month. Consequently, in the first four months of 2015 the Georgian economy expanded by 2.6%. ISET’s GDP forecast for the second quarter of 2015 is 5.1%, which seems to be rather overoptimistic given the grim start of the quarter.

For resilient economic development in Georgia, the country should encourage exports of higher-value added goods. In this report, ISET-PI and GET have found that Georgia might be able to develop a comparative advantage when it comes to exporting higher-value energy-intensive products. According to projections of its electricity network operator, Georgia will develop excess capacities of low-cost electricity in the next decade.

The Debt Management Specialist’s initial focus was an assessment of the public debt management legal environment, institutional coordination and arrangements, public debt management initiatives and capacity, public debt portfolio composition, and macroeconomic condition in Georgia. This report provides a general overview of these fore mentioned components.