Recently, Geostat has released the preliminary estimate of the real GDP growth for the third quarter of 2017. The Q3 growth rate now stands at 4.4%, which is 1.5% below ISET-PI’s last forecasted value. As a result, the estimated real GDP growth for the first nine months of 2017 amounted to 4.7%.

Recently, Geostat published the preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2017, which now stands at 4.7%. This is 0.7 percentage points above the previously estimated average growth rate for Q2. As a result, the real GDP growth for the first half of 2017 reached 4.9%.

According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP growth was 4% year over year (YoY) in Q2 2017, which fell short of the 5.8% that had been expected by the ISET-PI GDP forecast made in July. This shortfall was driven not by weak performance, but overly optimistic predictions of ISET-PI’s empirical model, influenced by high actual growth in the first quarter (5.1% YoY).

Geostat has recently released its rapid estimate of economic growth for the second quarter of 2017, which now stands at 4%. As a result, estimated real GDP growth for the first half of 2017 reached 4.5%. The ISET-PI real GDP growth forecast for the third quarter of 2017 was revised downward to 5.3%.

We started forecasting the annual growth rate at the start of 2014 (see our January 2014 and February 2014 publications for a note on methodology). Based on January’s data, we expect annual growth in 2017 to be 6.2% in the worst-case or “no growth” scenario, and 6.6% in the best-case or “average long-term growth” scenario. Our “middle-of-the-road” scenario (based on the average growth in the last four quarters) predicts a 6.3% real GDP growth in 2017.