16
May
2017
The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI)* has improved quite substantially, reaching 29.0 index points, which is an 11.5 index points improvement over the last quarter. The second-quarter increase in the BCI was mostly driven by strong performance in the last quarter and quite a significant improvement in expectations.
19
April
2017
American and Western European visitors to Georgia are fascinated by the fact that middle-aged Georgian taxi drivers often brandish a couple of engineering degrees, while young hotel receptionists and shop assistants frequently come with law, business, and international relations education. Having spent a couple of days in Tbilisi, visitors may come to imagine that Georgia is so abundant in human capital that entry into these fairly undemanding occupations is extremely competitive.
17
April
2017
The tradition – and, in most cases, the only way – for Georgian entrepreneurs to finance their businesses and ideas is bank lending, so-called debt financing. However, this source of financing is very limited for start-ups and early-stage businesses, due to the high level of risk involved, the unavailability of collateral assets, and high loan interest rates, which are almost unaffordable for companies that do not generate sufficient returns yet.
10
April
2017
On April 10, ISET students delivered yet another policy seminar. A presentation entitled “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) & Economic Growth. Case of Georgia” was delivered by Givi Gujaraidze, Tinatin Mumladze, Kristine Gureshidze, and Shota Bakhuashvili under the supervision of Eric Livny, President of ISET, and Yaroslava Babych, Head of Macroeconomic Policy Research Center at ISET Policy Institute.
08
April
2017
In 2007, an American businessman and friend of the then Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, was visiting Damascus before continuing his journey to Jerusalem. On the morning of his departure to Israel, the Mukhabarat, Syria’s secret service, knocked at his hotel room. The Syrian agents calmed down the scared businessman – he was not to be taken to some torture prison, of which there were many in Syria.
