On May 13-15, ISET-PI researcher Giorgi Mzhvanadze participated in the annual European Newspaper Congress in Vienna, Austria. The congress was focused on the main opportunities and challenges of the daily newspaper medium, but the topics were much broader than the title suggested.

Georgian consumer sentiment remained practically unchanged in February 2018, extending a fairly long trend of stability (or stagnation) that goes back to at least August 2017. The CCI lost a tiny 0.2 index points, declining from -18.9 in January to -19.1 index points in February 2018. CCI’s two sub-indices, capturing consumer expectations and present situation assessment, moved in the opposite directions. The Present Situation Index lost 3.8 (declining from -23.6 to -27.4 index points).

If you are a governmental stakeholder, civil society organization, research institute, or a concerned citizen pondering the state of the environment, the biennial Environmental Performance Index (EPI) tells an inconvenient truth regarding the trajectory of each country and its performance. The rankings provide unpolished results concerning countries and their commitments, or lack thereof, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other complementary international agreements.

The Khachapuri Index kept declining in April, 2018, very much in line with the seasonal trend we observe every year. The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri currently stands at 3.28 GEL, which is 7.4% lower month-on-month (that is, compared to March 2018), and 1% lower year-on-year (that is, compared to April 2017).

In March 2018, Georgian power plants generated 997 mln. KWh of electricity (+35% compared to March 2017, and + 7% compared to February 2018). Nearly a quarter (24 %) of this electricity was produced by the Enguri and Vardnili hydropower plants, which produced 188 mln. kWh and 49 mln. kWh, respectively. Consumption of electricity on the local market was 1,116 mln. kWh (+9% compared to March 2017, and +5% compared to February 2018).