Georgian crime is ravaging in Germany. On February 28th of last year, the Augsburger Allgemeine published an article titled “Police captures Georgian burglary gang”. On May 22nd, the police of Bavaria issued a press release titled “DNA proves Georgian burglars to be guilty”. On August 13th, an article in the Bietigheimer Zeitung was titled “Georgian burglars put behind bars”, mentioning that since 2010, “burglaries by Georgian perpetrators have increased dramatically”.
Once the wealthiest Soviet republic, Georgia has since fallen far behind other post-Soviet states (except for, perhaps, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova) in almost any parameter of wellbeing. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, Georgia’s annual income per capita in 2012 was close to $5,900 (a little higher than in resources-poor Armenia).
On Tuesday, January 26th ISET hosted a delegation of His Excellency Lukas Beglinger, Ambassador of Switzerland to Georgia, and Olivier Bürki, Counselor, Embassy of Switzerland, Regional Director South Caucasus to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC and State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO. The purpose of the visit was to get to know the new Ambassador and the new Director of SDC and SECO and discuss the strengthening and continuation of the collaboration.
ISET is happy to announce that Giorgi Nozadze was promoted to a new position at the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia (MoA). Giorgi graduated from ISET with the class of 2011. He started his professional career working in the risk management department of a commercial bank. In the summer of 2012 he was employed by the National Statistics Office of Georgia (GeoStat) as a database analyst.
According to the most recent rapid estimates of economic growth by GeoStat, in November 2015 the Georgian economy increased by 5.3% compared to the same month the year before. The 5.3% increase represents the highest growth rate in nearly 15 months. This optimistic outcome should, however, be treated with a degree of caution.