ISET continues its student policy paper seminar series for the institute's (now graduated) second-year students. This time, Tatia Sosiashvili, Megi Tsikoridze, Nino Aladashvili, and Sopo Basilidze presented their joint paper on tax administration in Georgia. Their project, entitled “Current Challenges in Tax Administration (VAT)”, was supervised by Eric Livny, President of ISET and the ISET Policy Institute, and Sophiko Skhirtladze, an ISET Resident Faculty member and head of the Private Sector Development Policy Research Center.
In the middle of June, food prices increased by 5.0% on an annual basis (that is, compared to June 2016), but decreased by 0.3% on a monthly basis (that is, compared to May 2017). During the last two weeks, greens, potatoes, and cabbage showed the biggest increase in prices by 29.4%, 23.8%, and 23.3%, respectively. In the meantime, tomato, cucumber and cheese prices dropped by 26.8%, 15.7% and 7.1%, respectively.
In May 2017, the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri declined to 3.14 GEL – a 5.4% decrease month-on-month (compared to April 2017). In annual terms (compared to May 2016), however, the Index gained 8.5%.
Food safety has become an important aspect of agricultural policy for many countries (see, e.g., CAP). By definition, “Food safety refers to the conditions and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and foodborne illnesses.” In other words, food safety aims to protect the health of humans, animals and plants at every stage of the food production chain in conformance with the "farm-to-table” principle established by the EU.
On June 15, representatives from the World Bank, UNICEF, and ISET gathered to analyze challenges and achievements in Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Georgia, as a part of the Education Policy Forum. The event was opened by Ozan Sevimli (the World Bank Program Coordinator for the South Caucasus), Ms. Laila Omar Gad (UNICEF's Representative to Georgia), Eric Livny (President of ISET), and Ketevan Natriashvili (Deputy Minister of Education).