The ISET-PI team participated in the Economic Research Mentoring Program (ERMP), organized by the China-Russia Eurasian Studies Centre (CREC). One of the ISET Policy Institute’s research proposals has been selected for the final round of the ERMP research competition.

On February 15th 2021, export quotas on wheat, rye, maize, and barley entered into force in Russia. Russia also imposed customs tariffs and prohibitive duties amounting to 50% of customs value on these products.

Recently, Geostat has released the preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2019, which now stands at 4.5%. This is only 0.3 percentage points below ISET-PI’s recent forecast. ISET-PI’s forecast of real GDP growth for the third quarter of 2019 stands at 7.1% — 0.4 percentage points lower than last month’s prediction. The first estimate for the fourth quarter growth forecast stands at 5.5%.

The latest impact of Gavrilov’s visit to Georgia has fueled societal concerns about the economic consequences of deterioration in Russo-Georgian relations. For instance, due to the Russian government’s decision to cancel flights to Georgia, residents are beginning to worry about potentially adverse economic impacts on the tourism sector. ISET-PI has already discussed the expected impact of such a change, highlighting how these concerns might be unwarranted, as tourism accounts for 7.6% of the GDP, with Russian tourism contributing only 1.8% to the economy.

After a generation deficit of August, Georgia continues to exhibit a decreasing trend in power generation; compared to August, total electricity generation has decreased by 14% in September 2018. Georgian power plants generated 849 mln. kWh of electricity, while consumption of electricity on the local market was 955 mln. kWh.