On November 21, around 30 ISET students visited the State Audit Office for educational purposes. Two state auditors (one of whom was a graduate of ISET) gave a series of lectures to the visitors, which was initially intended to be conducted in English, but eventually done in Georgian due to the absence of international students.

Based on a report prepared by international auditors, DQS GmbH issued a three-year quality management Certificate of Conformity with ISO 9001:2015 standard requirements, which focus on improving business management and system performance.

Nikoloz M., 65, from the Imeretian village of Jikhaishi, invested around 15,000 GEL into his 8.5 ha hazelnut orchard in 2012, hoping that one day his initiative would turn into a profitable business. Nikoloz was on his way to success up until this year, before the stink bug, or Asian pharosana, as Georgians call it, appeared in his orchard. While Nikoloz expected to harvest 800 kg – 1000 kg of hazelnuts per ha, the stink bug infestation reduced his harvest by 30-35%, resulting in a loss of more than 1,000 GEL per ha.

Georgia’s real GDP growth rate in Q3 reached 4.4% year-on-year, putting the country on the path to achieving 4.7% annual growth in 2017. Export, tourism and money transfer trends were behind the strong showing in Quarter 3. Supply side pressures will keep inflation above the 4% target in 2017.

ISET Professor Norberto Pignatti was invited by the Leibnitz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg to present his paper, ‘Job market outcomes of IDPs: the case of Georgia’.