The economic policies of successive Georgian governments have arguably lacked cohesive direction when it comes to inclusive growth. There still remains an open question of whether the overall goal has been to pull people from agriculture or to leave them where they are while pushing productivity up via, for instance, funding the development of cooperatives or clusters. Concurrently, the state also has introduced industrial policies, like establishing SME support agencies that operate under the auspices of different ministries.
The real GDP growth rate reached 5.7% y/y in October 2019. As a result, the estimated real GDP growth for the first ten months of 2019 was 5.1%. ISET-PI’s real GDP growth forecast for the fourth quarter of 2019 remains at 4.4%.
According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP growth constituted 5.7% year over year (y/y) in Q3 2019. As a result, estimated real GDP growth for the first nine months of 2019 amounted to 5.0%, which is above the National Bank of Georgia’s (NBG) growth forecast for 2019 (the forecast remained unchanged at 4.5%). Meanwhile, based on September’s data, ISET-PI expects annual growth in 2019 to be 4.9%.
Recently, GeoStat has released its preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the third quarter of 2019. The Q3 growth rate now stands at 5.7%, which is 1.4% below ISET-PI’s last forecasted value. As a result, the estimated real GDP growth for the first nine months of 2019 amounted to 5.0%.
On November 8, ISET was visited by Mr. Juha Kahkonen, Deputy Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF, who gave a presentation on the fact that global trade tensions and slowing growth amongst key trading partners are affecting the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) region.