The ISET Policy Institute is a founding member of the Economic Policy Advocacy Coalition (EPAC), supported by USAID’s Governing for Growth (G4G) project. This initiative seeks to support the creation of an enabling business environment through public and private dialogues.

Georgian consumer confidence suffered a major blow at the end of 2014, in the wake of the sharp Lari depreciation. Around February 2015, the Index found some support at the very low level of -35-30 points and has been slightly improving since then. In July 2015, this mildly positive trend was reversed, and in August, the Index dropped another 4.1 points to reach a new historical minimum of -38.4 points. Interestingly, this entire drop was driven by older respondents, those aged over 35. We will come back to this point later in the article.

The Policy Brief predicted potential for Georgia to specialise in the international provision of business services (PP/01/2015). Potential was predicted in the service trade category of “other business services”, encompassing mainly.

ISET-PI and GET have predicted the potential for Georgia to specialize in the international provision of business services. This potential can be primarily applies to the following practices: Operational leasing services, Legal and accounting services, Management consulting and public relations, advertising, market research, R&D, architectural and technical services.

The first tea bushes appeared in Western Georgia in 1847, and since then tea production has played a significant, yet widely unknown, role in Georgia’s history. The humid and subtropical climate of Western Georgia in the regions of Guria, Samegrelo, Adjara, Imereti, and Abkhazia are ideal for harvesting tea, and this was a fact eventually recognized by businessmen outside Georgia.