On Wednesday, September 7, ISET hosted Dr. Jon Hanf, Head of the Wine Economics Program at Geisenheim University, Germany, who spoke about the prospects of Georgian wine in the highly competitive German market.

Starting from October 1, 2017, a private retirement savings system will be launched in Georgia as part of broader pension reform. This reform has been discussed by Nino Doghonadze and Yaroslava Babych in Decent Income in Old Age: Georgian Dream or Reality? on the ISET Economist. Today we will focus only on one very interesting aspect of the reform – the “opt-out” principle and its implementation in the Georgian realities.

In 2014, 22% of Georgia’s working adults reported having worked more than 40 hours per week, i.e. working overtime. This may not sound like a lot, but, as an average figure, it hides a great deal of geographic variation in the incidence of overtime work. Very few people work overtime in places where there are almost no jobs, such as Kakheti or Racha. Conversely, more than 50% work over 8 hours/day in the dynamically developing Tbilisi, and as many as 44% in the adjacent Kvemo Kartli.

In June 2016, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri increased to 3.12 GEL, which is 1.5% higher month-on-month (m/m, that is compared to May 2016), but 9.6% higher year-on-year (y/y, compared to June 2015).

On June 2, 2016, the second EU-supported Farmers’ Congress of Georgia was held at the Tbilisi exposition center. Around 150 farmers from different parts of Georgia had an opportunity to meet with the government representatives and discuss the current challenges of Georgian agriculture.