There are many possibilities for how to increase the productivity of the Georgian agricultural sector. Experts suggest upgrading knowledge and technologies, promoting collaboration among farmers, and coping with the land fragmentation problem, to name just a few of the ideas circulating in the debate.

On November 13, 2013, ISET hosted a presentation of the preliminary results of “Support in Economic Policy Analysis Using CGE Modeling in Georgia,” an ISET Policy Institute project that started in December 2012 with the financial and technical support of GIZ’s Private Sector Development Program South Caucasus.

In our last week’s article, we examined Georgia’s economic growth in the 12 months before the 2012 parliamentary elections. In particular, we reviewed the popular argument that much of this economic growth was driven by the “political business cycle” effect of public (over)spending prior to the elections.

Georgian agriculture was more developed in Soviet times than it is today. Despite great overall technological progress almost everywhere in the last 20 years, Georgia moved back when it comes to agriculture. In the year 1990, at the end of the Soviet Union, the number of cattle exceeded 4 million, while today it is just a little more than 1 million.

Travel and Tourism is one of the largest and fastest-growing service industries globally. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the industry’s direct contribution to World GDP in 2012 was US$ 2.1 trillion (2012 prices) and it supported 101 million jobs.