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.

When I left Russia back in late 2006, attempting to cross a busy Moscow street bordered on suicide. Instead of slowing down before a zebra crossing, Russian drivers were in the habit of accelerating so as to signal their intention NOT to stop. Understandably, pedestrians had no choice but to adjust their street crossing strategies accordingly.

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.

Soon the Georgian Parliament will be discussing a small but important change, which will affect something as significant and vital as bread, along with pasta, khachapuri, and anything made with wheat flour. The Georgian legislators will be considering a law, according to which flour fortification will become mandatory in Georgia.