19
June
2016
In the year of elections, any piece of economic analysis is usually seasoned with a hefty dose of caution. Every analyst is aware of the fact that the incumbents will be too eager to oversell the ‘good’, while the opposition will pound on the ‘bad’. Weary of taking sides in political battles, economists usually switch on their primary defense mechanism: they start relying (heavily) on the annoying “on the one hand”, “on the other hand” kinds of phrases. I am of course referring to Georgia in the year 2016.
15
June
2016
The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) continues to improve. Unlike last quarter, the second-quarter increase in the index was mostly driven by a significant improvement in performance rather than in business expectations, which kept rising albeit at a marginal pace.
14
June
2016
On June 15, 2016, ISET held a press conference to discuss recent economic indicators of Georgia. In the second quarter of 2016, the two most important economic barometers of consumer and business sentiment in Georgia – the Business Confidence Index (BCI) and the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) continued to steadily improve.
13
June
2016
On June 10, in cooperation with G4G USAID, ISET Policy Institute completed a 3-day workshop on Competition Policy. Eleven participants from the State Competition Agency, the Taxpayers Union (TPU), Georgian Lawyers for Independent Professions (GLIP), and ISET all attended the event.
20
April
2016
According to GeoStat estimates, real GDP grew by 2.6% year over year in February 2016. This growth rate is an improvement over the 0.8% growth observed in the previous months. Still, in order to reach the predicted quarterly 2.9% growth (the ISET-PI forecast for Q1 real growth), the economy would have to have expanded by at least 5.4% in March. While the actual growth for March is likely to be lower than that figure, the increases in the consumer and business confidence indices (CCI, BCI) in the last month can be interpreted as good signs for the economy going forward.
