On 26 September, the World Economic Forum published The Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018. The full report contains detailed profiles and rankings for 137 countries based on 2016 data.
In the summer of 2017, Georgia experienced an unusually high number of forest fires across the entire country. 35 forest fires were recorded just in August (official data reporting the size of area burned by these fires is not yet available). In almost all regions of the country, several fires were reported. Among them, the conflagration in the Borjomi gorge had the most dramatic consequences: it lasted for seven days (20-27 August), and more than 100 hectares of forest were destroyed. Many people claim that these cannot be all accidental events.
After hitting an all-time high in JUN-17, the GEO real property market slowed down in JUL-17 (-13.8% MoM), but gradually recovered during the next two months: AUG-17 (+6.5% MoM) and SEP-17 (+3.8% MoM). Despite the slowdown, with a total of 24 848 property sales, the GEO market in Q3 2017 grew by 0.7% compared to the previous quarter, and 5.9% against Q3 2016.
The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri reached 3.45GEL in August 2017. The price jumped up by 3.9% month-on-month (compared to July 2017), and by 9.2% year-on-year (compared to August 2016).
By the end of September, ISET’s Retail Food Price Index increased by 10.1% y/y (compared to September 2016). On a monthly basis (compared to August 2017), retail food prices slightly decreased, by 0.5%. The largest bi-weekly price changes were recorded for vegetables.