On October 2nd, ISET was visited by representatives of FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Bank, who came to talk about the Bank’s activities and its investments in Georgia. Mr. Jan-Willem Hoek, Investment Officer, and Ms. Naomi Campbell, Environmental & Social Officer, gave a presentation entitled ‘Doing Makes The Difference’, and explained the Bank’s commitment to global development and humanitarian outcomes.

ISET Policy Institute research team was comissioned by UN Women to conduct Regulatory Impact Assessments and Gender Impact Assessments for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Georgia.

In comparison to Q2 2019, the GEO real property market increased by 3.1% in Q3 2019. While, the annual increase was more pronounced at 7.0% (YoY) compared to Q3 2018.

According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP growth was 4.5% year over year (y/y) in Q2 2019, which fell slightly below the 4.8% growth predicted by ISET-PI’s GDP forecast from July. As economic growth constituted 4.9% y/y in Q1, the Georgian government’s 4.5% target of real GDP growth for 2019 does not seem overambitious.

In September 2019, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri reached 3.64 GEL, which is 3.0% higher month-on-month (compared to August 2019), and 2.3% higher year-on-year (compared to September 2018). The price of khachapuri increased in all four major cities of Georgia: Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, and Telavi.