ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI), as a part of the ENPARD project (under the CARE consortium), is involved in the collection and analysis of the market price information of agricultural products around Georgia. ISET-PI, in co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia (MoA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), organized training for representatives from the MoA’s Information and Consultation Centers (ICC).

ISET students Ana Akoposhvili and Ketevan Melkadze came second place in the Mariam Kutelia Research Grant competition. They took part during their internship at a USAID-funded project, Restoring Efficiency to Agricultural Production. The purpose of the competition was to write proposals on how to improve the current state of the Georgian agricultural sector. The ISET students were awarded another paid internship at the Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC) between April 15 and June 15.

The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) continues to improve. Unlike last quarter, the second-quarter increase in the index was mostly driven by a significant improvement in performance rather than in business expectations, which kept rising albeit at a marginal pace.

On June 15, 2016, ISET held a press conference to discuss recent economic indicators of Georgia. In the second quarter of 2016, the two most important economic barometers of consumer and business sentiment in Georgia – the Business Confidence Index (BCI) and the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) continued to steadily improve.

On June 10, in cooperation with G4G USAID, ISET Policy Institute completed a 3-day workshop on Competition Policy. Eleven participants from the State Competition Agency, the Taxpayers Union (TPU), Georgian Lawyers for Independent Professions (GLIP), and ISET all attended the event.