ISET’s Khachapuri Index kept declining in April, which is in line with seasonal trends. The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri currently stands at 3.32 GEL, which is 2.5% lower month-on-month (compared to March 2017), and 4.9% above year-on-year (compared to April 2016).

By the end of April, food prices increased by 4.0% on an annual basis (that is, compared to April 2016) but decreased by 0.9% on a monthly basis (that is, compared to March 2017). During the last two weeks of April, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes showed the biggest increase in prices by 23.2%, 13.5%, and 10.1%, respectively.

On April 21, the Parliament of Georgia approved changes to the Road Traffic law introducing the so-called demerit points system (DPS) in Georgia. Under the DPS every driver will receive a reserve of 100 points. For each traffic violation, in addition to the monetary penalty, the points will be deducted from a 100 points “allowance”.

Listening to discussions in professional circles and among policymakers, one can easily notice that the topic of energy security is often used as a reason to justify certain decisions or point out the problems existing in the sector. Energy security is frequently associated with energy “independence” – a condition that only a few countries in the world can claim to have achieved.

With a total of 21 611 property sales, Georgian real estate market in Q1 2017 grew by 6.1% (YoY). 194 new buildings with total area of 301.1 thousand sq.m were completed in Tbilisi during Q1 2017.