Based on the latest data, we expect annual growth in 2016 to be 3.3%. This is just 0.1% below the recently released annual economic growth projections of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and 0.2% lower than the annual forecast of the National Bank of Georgia.

The IMF’s projection for real GDP growth in Georgia in 2017 was revised upward to 5.2% from the predicted 4.5% in April. This is the highest projected regional growth rate and is certainly very encouraging. Despite this, Georgia remains a small economy, where GDP growth has always been highly correlated to the economic performance of its large trading partners.

Along with a recent interview by a Japanese journalist on regional economics and the attendance of a Japanese student in the Class of 2018, ISET is broadening its Japanese experience with a visit to Tokyo.

Based on the latest data, the updated annual GDP growth projection is 3.4%. It is noteworthy that the model starts to provide the most accurate annual estimate in September when seven months of data is available on core explanatory variables.

According to Geostat’s rapid estimates, real GDP grew by 2.1% in July 2016, while the growth rate for Q2 stood at 2.3% year over year (YoY). The estimated second quarter growth was thus 1.6 percentage points lower than ISET-PI’s GDP forecast for the quarter.