On Wednesday, January 23, ISET hosted the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), Mr. Koba Gvenetadze. Mr. Gvenetadze delivered a profoundly informative lecture about the importance of monetary policies for economic well-being, discussing issues such as the importance of the price stability objective, inflation targeting frameworks (specifically why it is so crucial to avoid both deflation and high inflation), and the efficiency of monetary policy transmission mechanisms under a flexible exchange rate.

According to Geostat’s figures, in the third quarter (Q3) of 2018, Georgia’s real GDP experienced growth of 4% year over year (YoY). Despite the slowdown of the growth rate compared to the previous quarters, IMF recently revised their forecast of economic growth for Georgia upwardly, from 4.5% to 5.0%. Forecasts for other international organizations and the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) remained the same, while ISET-PI, based on October’s data, expect annual growth in 2018 to be 4.6% YoY.

On October 18, in collaboration with the National Bank of Georgia and the Administration of the Georgian President, the ISET Policy Institute hosted a presentation about the effectiveness of the “School-Bank” project, which continued with a round table discussion about financial literacy in Georgia.

Georgia’s real GDP growth constituted a strong 5.5% year over year (YoY) in the second quarter (Q2) of 2018, according to the Geostat figures. Recently this year, IMF and World Bank upped their forecast of economic growth for Georgia from 4.2% to 4.5%. In August, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) has also revised its forecast for 2018 from 4.8% to 5.5%. Meanwhile, ISET-PI expects annual growth in 2018 to be 6.3% YoY.

According to Geostat’s rapid estimates of GDP growth, Georgia’s economy continues expanding at a moderately high pace, reaching 5.2% in the first quarter of 2018. GDP growth was mainly driven by an enhanced external environment, improved business confidence, credit expansion, and fiscal stimulus. Geostat’s Q1 growth figure is higher than the National Bank of Georgia’s (NBG) 4.8% projection for annual growth in 2018 but falls behind ISET PI’s annual GDP growth forecast of 5.7%.