The second phase assessment of the SME/Innovations Development reforms was conducted within the ReforMeter over the course of February.
ISET continues its student policy seminar series, this time with Mariam Katsadze, Mariam Dvalishvili, Tsotne Marghia, Elene Ghviniashvili, and Giorgi Nebulishvili presenting their research results under the supervision of Eric Livny, President of ISET, and Yaroslava Babych, head of the Macroeconomic Policy Research Center, at the ISET Policy Institute.
ISET Policy Institute aims to develop the policy alternatives to be used for implementation of economic instruments for water management based on principles of EU Water Framework Directive.
The agricultural cooperative movement started a few years ago in Georgia and the registered farmer groups are currently still at the embryonic stage of development. The Soviet legacy and rather negative attitude towards earlier forms of cooperation (Kolkoz and Sovkhoz) has gradually faded among farmers, and today more than 1,400 cooperatives are registered with the Agricultural Cooperative Development Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia.
At the end of January, ISET’s Retail Food Price Index increased by 5.2% y/y (compared to January 2017). On a monthly basis (compared to December 2017), food prices in Tbilisi’s major supermarkets decreased slightly by 0.3%. According to data from the last two weeks of January, prices dropped the most for buckwheat (-6%), rice (-6%), and bananas (-2%).