ISET Policy Institute was contracted by the OECD to assess selected policy dimensions of the EU Small Business Act for Georgia. In order to complete this task, ISET-PI conducted desk research of the existing literature and conducted interviews with government officials, private sector representatives and members of the SME community, including civil society.

It now seems more and more likely that Eastern Donbas (the area currently controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics) will become a frozen conflict zone, a territory in which the Ukrainian government will have little power to enforce its laws and where slowly a parallel governance system, an unrecognized ‘quasi-state’, will emerge. In the absence of a viable military alternative, one option likely to be considered by Ukraine and its Western allies is to exercise ‘strategic patience’.

The Georgian government is currently working on the draft of a new Code on Spatial Planning and Construction, with the aim of increasing the safety of new constructions while consolidating the great achievements obtained in terms of effectiveness in the delivery of construction permits.

About 9 months ago, we were already discussing the oddities of egg prices in Georgia (“The Georgian Egg of Discord”, by Giorgi Kelbakiani and Eric Livny). At that time, huge volatility in egg prices could be explained by interesting political dynamics. Under the UNM government, local producers of eggs were largely protected from external competition through non-tariff import barriers, called by the ministry of agriculture a “complete violation of law and international agreements”.

When thinking of “market distortions” we typically imagine government regulations, taxes, and subsidies that prevent market mechanisms from achieving an optimal outcome. For example, if you pay $100 for a 30-minute taxi ride (as is the case in many European capitals), you can easily relate it to a government regulation requiring all taxi drivers to be licensed (at a very high cost). In the absence of such a requirement, many more drivers would be able to enter the taxi driving profession, increasing supply and reducing prices.