China is the largest bilateral creditor to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) presently. China’s lending mainly targets infrastructure, transport, energy, and mining sectors in developing countries that are of strategic importance to the Chinese government. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have observed the most substantial increases in borrowing. Chinese financing to LMICs is facilitated through state entities, offering concessional and non-concessional loans, with a significant portion of lending cloaked in confidentiality.
In June 2024, the National Statistics Office of Georgia issued its annual publication on the agricultural sector – Agriculture of Georgia 2023. The publication estimates that agriculture, forestry, and fishing comprised 6.9% of the GDP in 2023, which is slightly lower than in previous years, but in line with general trends over the last few years (agricultural GDP being 7-8% of GDP on average).
According to GeoStat’s preliminary estimates in the first quarter of 2024, Georgia’s nominal GDP reached GEL 18,913.2 million, with a year-over-year real GDP growth of 8.4% and a GDP deflator change of 3.1%. The growth was driven by significant increases in value-added across various sectors: Real estate activities rose by 18.8%, Education by 29.1%, Public administration and defence, including social security, by 13.0%, Construction by 10.3%, Information and communication by 12.2%, and Transportation and storage by 9.7%.
In May 2024, Georgian power plants generated 1,411 mln. kWh of electricity. This represents a 6% increase in the total generation compared to the previous year (in May 2023, the total generation was 1,325 mln. kWh). The rise in generation on a yearly basis comes from an increase in generation of hydropower plant by 7%, while the generation of thermal and wind plants decreased by 100% and 14%, respectively.
Geostat has published its preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for April 2024, which stands at 11.8%. In addition, the estimated growth for the first quarter of 2024 reached 7.8%.