Various business support programs have been implemented in many countries across the world. Grants, interest-rate subsidies, and equity participation are among some of the most adopted tools for promoting firms’ performances (Dupont and Martin, 2006). Such assistance programs also have their own objectives. For example, low-interest rate loans and cash transfers to new and small firms are designed to overcome the financial constraints many firms face (Hubbard, 1998).

Since 2012, when the political party Georgian Dream took leadership of the country’s governance, economic [real] growth reached its highest rate in 2017 (5.0%). The drivers of this growth were construction (11.2%), hotels and restaurants (11.2%), and the financial sector (9.2%). However, a few sectors of the economy declined in 2017, and one was agriculture (-2.7%).

On October 6th, ISET-PI research fellow, Levan Pavlenishvili of the Energy and Environment Policy Research Center, participated in a panel discussion organized by World Experience Georgia (WEG) at Ligamus Book shop of Ilia State University. The panel discussed Discussion subsidies in the energy sector and it was attended by representatives of academia and other sector stakeholders including WEG representatives Mr. Murman Margvelashvili and Mr. Giorgi Mukhigulishvili.

The objective of the assistance program is the promotion of agro-technical activities (plowing) for cultivating annual crops and supplying the industrial inputs (fertilizers and/or seeds and/or plant protection products); and the promotion of the activities of those land-poor-farmers who only have perennial crops on their lands (the provision of fertilizers and/or plant protection products).

On June 13, ISET hosted Dr. Dmitry Shapiro from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who presented his paper “Microfinance and Dynamic Incentives”.