Why do central banks regulate commercial banks and not that of, say, bakeries? This was the fundamental question Giorgi Kadagidze, a former governor of the National Bank of Georgia, tried to answer during his presentation for ISET students, faculty, and executives enrolled in ISET’s Finance for Professionals course on Tuesday, March 15.

Georgia’s Insolvency law of 2007 is primarily oriented towards a rapid liquidation of insolvent corporate entities and private entrepreneurs’ businesses with subsequent distribution of remaining assets amongst the creditors. The number of insolvency cases dealt with by the local courts of Tbilisi and Kutaisi is fairly limited most probably due to insufficient assets in the insolvent entities to cover the costs of the insolvency procedure.

Regulations in the energy sector are there in order to ensure improvements in efficiency and service quality. They are essential because many actors in the energy sector of any country are state companies and/or natural monopolies for which efficiency and quality of service are somewhat foreign concepts.

The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) has gained 3 points (on a [-100/100 scale])1 due to the strengthening of business expectations. All of a sudden, the expectations of the private sector in Georgia improved and reached 38 index points. This is an improvement from 16 points in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Retail food prices show a 2.5% decrease y-o-y and a 2.3% decrease from the previous month. Compared to February, onions, coffee, and potatoes experienced the biggest drops showing 8.3%, 7.1%, and 7.0% decreases in prices, respectively.