Based on the latest data, we expect annual growth in 2016 to be 3.3%. This is just 0.1% below the recently released annual economic growth projections of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and 0.2% lower than the annual forecast of the National Bank of Georgia.

The IMF’s projection for real GDP growth in Georgia in 2017 was revised upward to 5.2% from the predicted 4.5% in April. This is the highest projected regional growth rate and is certainly very encouraging. Despite this, Georgia remains a small economy, where GDP growth has always been highly correlated to the economic performance of its large trading partners.

In what has been a decidedly international few months for ISET with recent visits to Japan, Norway, and India (as well as a trip to Uzbekistan in late October), yet another member of the institute's faculty has traveled abroad, this time to Germany.

Along with a recent interview by a Japanese journalist on regional economics and the attendance of a Japanese student in the Class of 2018, ISET is broadening its Japanese experience with a visit to Tokyo.

Based on the latest data, the updated annual GDP growth projection is 3.4%. It is noteworthy that the model starts to provide the most accurate annual estimate in September when seven months of data is available on core explanatory variables.