02
February
2021
For the first quarter of 2021, BCI increased by 32.1 index points and reached 3.4 after a significant deterioration in the previous quarter. Business confidence improved across all sectors, except retail trade, with the largest increase observed in the construction sector. The positive change in BCI, for Q1 2021, is driven by optimistic future expectations and improved past performance.
28
December
2020
The COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about the food security of many countries, in particular import-dependent developing countries like Georgia. Trade restrictions imposed by Georgia’s trade partners tightened the supply of some cereals and vegetables, signalling the risk of an increase in food prices.
16
December
2020
The real GDP growth rate amounted to -3.9% year-on-year for October 2020. Consequently, the estimated real GDP for the first ten months of 2020 was -5.1%. Recently, GeoStat released its preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the first and second quarters of 2020. The Q1 and Q2 growth rates were revised downward to 2.2% (by 0.1 ppt) and -13.2% (by 0.9 ppt) respectively.
28
October
2020
For the fourth quarter of 2020, BCI decreased by 18.7 index points and reached -28.6 after a significant improvement in the previous quarter. Business confidence deteriorated across all sectors, except retail trade and financial. The largest decrease is observed in the construction sector. The negative change in BCI, for Q4 2020, is driven by significantly pessimistic future expectations.
21
October
2020
ISET-PI’s forecast of real GDP growth for the third quarter (July-September) of 2020 remains at -11.6%, unchanged from last month’s prediction. The third estimate for the fourth quarter (October-December) growth forecast stands at -11.8%. Notably, our econometric model depends only on retrospective information (past observations), thus, the abnormally large negative growth of real GDP during the state of emergency period causes an overestimation of the contraction in the following quarters.
