After many years of chaos and utter collapse, Georgia’s once glorious tea industry is again showing signs of life. More and more individual farmers and businesses – mostly very small, but some quite ambitious, such as Geoplant (known for its “Gurieli” brand) – grow, process, and pack tea. Despite competition from major producing countries and international brands, Georgian tea has great export potential because of the value attached to it all over the former Soviet Union.

Professor Hans Wiesmeth from Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) visit ISET last Thursday to present one of his recent papers “The Environmental Kuznets Curve”, co-authored with Shlomo Weber from New Economic School.

On November 5th, 2015 APRC at ISET Policy Institute presented the final results of a study called Regulatory Impact Assessment on crop insurance in Georgia. The goal of the workshop was to present and discuss the final results of RIA which was conducted by the APRC team from June to October 2015.

On November 4th, President of ISET Eric Livny and the Team Leader of the German Economic Team (GET) Ricardo Giucci held a joint session for stakeholders on their most recent study: Depreciation of Lari: “Necessary and Effective”, that GET produced in cooperation with ISET-PI.

In August 2015, domestic production in Georgia increased by 2.3% annually – a figure that is expected to retain stability around this year’s overall trend. Consumer price inflation reached its highest value in two years (5.4%). The August 2015 increase in electricity tariffs and the growing number of tourist arrivals put additional upward pressure on consumer price inflation.