In February 2021, the average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian khachapuri stood at 4.69 GEL. This is 3.1% lower MoM (compared to January 2021) and 7.8% higher YoY (in comparison to February of 2020). On a monthly basis, at this time of the year, a downward trend in the index is not unusual, and simply relates to the decreasing price of cheese (due to an increased seasonal supply of fresh milk).

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.

The average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian khachapuri stood at 4.62 GEL in November 2020. This is 4.5% higher MoM (compared to October 2020), and 12% higher YoY (in comparison to November of 2019). The index maintaining an upward trend at this time of the year is typical and relates to the increasing price of cheese (due to the reduced supply of fresh milk).

Geostat has updated its GDP growth estimate for the third quarter of 2020. The Q3 growth rate stands at -3.8%. As a result, the real GDP growth estimate for the first nine months of 2020 is -5%. As a result of the update, the growth forecast for Q4 of 2020 was revised to -3.3%. ISET-PI’s first forecast for Q1 of 2021 puts GDP growth at -1.4%.

In October 2020, the Khachapuri Index continued its upward trend and reached 4.37 GEL. This figure is 2.9% higher than the previous month (September 2020) and 12.5% higher than October 2019 (YoY). Every ingredient contributed to the YoY Khachapuri Index inflation: cheese (19.0%), flour (16.3%), butter (12.4%), yeast (16.4%), milk (2.8%), and eggs (0.3%).