After a couple of declines, food prices in the largest supermarkets in Georgia have increased. In the first two weeks of November, an upward trend was maintained: Retail FPI was 2% higher compared to the same period of October. An increase in FPI was driven by an increase in the price of fruits and vegetables. On an annual basis, we still record a significant overall 9.5% decline (November 2016 VS November 2015).

Just like the World Bank’s Doing Business, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and many other international rankings, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) Transition Reports have typically carried a very positive message for Georgia, Eastern Europe’s poster child of transition since the Rose Revolution of 2003. This year’s Transition Report, launched last week in Tbilisi by Alexander Plekhanov, EBRD’s Deputy Director of Research, is somewhat exceptional in this regard.

In October 2016, the average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian Khachapuri was 3.39 GEL, which is 6.1% lower year-on-year (compared to the same month of the previous year, October 2015).

ISET recently had the honor to host the first cohort of students for the Executive Leadership Program, which was launched in cooperation with TBC Bank, and is designed for entrepreneurs and business executives who strive to take their careers to the next level.

On November 14, Dr. Nadja El Benni, employed at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) until October 2016 and starting at Agroscope (Swiss Confederation’s center of excellence for agricultural research) in January 2017 as head of the Strategic Research Division “Competitiveness and System Evaluation”, visited ISET.