ISET is deeply saddened to announce that class of 2015 alumnus Artak Voskanyan lost his life in a car accident in his native Armenia on July 4th. The ISET community was devastated to learn of Artak's death. He is remembered as friendly, motivated, and keen to be involved in as many activities as possible. He founded the USA2Yerevan initiative and was an active, enthusiastic member of the university.

Tamta Maridashvili is an intern at the Education and Social Policy Research Center at the ISET Policy Institute. She is currently taking part in a project of the Asian Development Bank, “Good Jobs for Inclusive Growth in Central and West Asia”. She is actively engaged in the process of gathering information, writing, and assisting the team in other project-related tasks.

On June 2, 2016, the second EU-supported Farmers’ Congress of Georgia was held at the Tbilisi exposition center. Around 150 farmers from different parts of Georgia had an opportunity to meet with the government representatives and discuss the current challenges of Georgian agriculture.

ISET PI researcher Maka Chitanava participated in the “International Summer School on Migration Research”, organized within the framework of two EU-funded projects, “Enhancing Georgia’s Migration Management” (an ENIGMMA project implemented in Georgia by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development), and the “Support for Implementation of the Mobility Partnership with Azerbaijan” project (a MOBILAZE endeavor implemented in Azerbaijan by the ICMPD).

According to Geostat estimates, real GDP grew by 4.3% year over year (YoY) in April 2016. Although the growth rate showed an upward trend from the beginning of the year, the ISET-PI forecast for Q2 and Q3 has remained at 4.2% and 4.3%, the same as in previous predictions. This means that the real growth rate is expected to stabilize at the 4-4.5% level in the next months.