On December 15, 2016, Dr. Natalia Velikova, Associate Professor at Texas Tech University (TTU), held a lecture on Focus Group Discussions for the researchers of ISET-PI. Natalia is an Associate Director of the Texas Wine Marketing Research Institute. Currently, she is a Fulbright scholar in Tbilisi and works on the Development of Wine Marketing and Wine Tourism Strategies for Georgia.

Citizens of Georgia’s capital recently witnessed the luxurious Biltmore Hotel Tbilisi grand opening. A $140 million investment by the Dhabi Group supplied the market with 214 luxury rooms and suites. The $2 million opening, huge building, and central location (right on Rustaveli Avenue) made the appearance of this hotel on the market very noticeable.

The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) has decreased by 7.4 percentage points (-7.4, QoQ), but at 17.6 it remains higher than it was in the same quarter last year (12.0). The fourth-quarter decrease in the index was mostly driven by a significant decline in expectations.

In recent years, a tendency on the part of different authorities to consolidate has been noted worldwide. Competition agencies are merging with consumer protection agencies and/or regulators in order to establish more effective and less expensive public systems. Accordingly, since the first roundtable meeting on the optimal design of a competition agency, held in February 2003, OECD has organized two more roundtables concerning changes in the institutional design of competition authorities in less than one year – one in December 2014, and one in June 2015.

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri varied across Georgian cities in November 2016, from 3.34 GEL, the minimum, observed in Batumi, to 3.55 GEL, the maximum, observed in Telavi. The average price was 3.46 GEL, which is 1.9% higher month-on-month (compared to October 2016). The Khachapuri Index is down up by 5.6% year-on-year (compared to November 2015), suggesting annual deflation as measured by the index.