According to Geostat’s rapid estimates, real GDP grew by 1.5% in September 2016, while the growth rate for Q3 stood at 2.2% year over year (YoY). The estimated third-quarter growth was thus 1.3 percentage points lower than ISET-PI’s GDP forecast for the quarter. One should note that the data from September are likely to include a very high services component (revenues from the tourism sector). Therefore, the quarterly growth number is likely to be revised upward in the future as more data comes in.
Based on the latest data, we expect annual growth in 2016 to be 3.3%. This is just 0.1% below the recently released annual economic growth projections of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and 0.2% lower than the annual forecast of the National Bank of Georgia.
Based on the latest data, the updated annual GDP growth projection is 3.4%. It is noteworthy that the model starts to provide the most accurate annual estimate in September when seven months of data is available on core explanatory variables.
The growth forecast for the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2016 were revised upward by 0.5%. They now stand at 4.7% and 4.8% respectively. Based on the available data, we expect annual growth in 2016 to be 3.7%. This is our “middle-of-the-road” scenario (based on the average growth in the last four quarters). Annual real GDP growth is predicted to be 2.9% in the worst-case or “no growth” scenario, and 4.4% in the best-case or “average long-term growth” scenario (see our January 2014 and February 2014 publications for a note on methodology).
According to Geostat estimates, real GDP grew by 4.3% year over year (YoY) in April 2016. Although the growth rate showed an upward trend from the beginning of the year, the ISET-PI forecast for Q2 and Q3 has remained at 4.2% and 4.3%, the same as in previous predictions. This means that the real growth rate is expected to stabilize at the 4-4.5% level in the next months.