In October 2007, responding to the problem of very low birthrates in the country, Ilia II. of Georgia, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, announced that he would personally baptize any third and subsequent child born to Orthodox families from that time onwards. This promise seems to have had a considerable impact on the reproduction behavior of Georgians.

Recently, one of the authors of this article was crossing a street with a crowd of people at green pedestrian light close to Marjanishvili metro station, when a Mercedes was accelerating and heading towards the people, ignoring the red light, making the crowd splash in all directions. A police car was standing nearby, doing nothing.

Based on the October data, the growth forecast for the last quarter of 2014 was revised upward from 1.1% to 3.6%. We have started to forecast the first quarter of 2015, with the initial forecast standing at 3.2%. Meanwhile, Geostat’s “rapid estimate” growth forecast for the month of October is 3.5%.

The Georgian economy’s growth rate appeared to slow down in September. According to Gaostat’s rapid estimates forecast, the real growth of GDP decreased to 4.1%. This estimate is the lowest this year since April when the growth rate fell to 2.7%. The ISET Leading Economic Indicators index warned about a possible slowdown of the economy in the third quarter, citing, in particular, the significant decline in exports that began in August 2014.

Based on the data from September, we have made the sixth update of the Q3 forecast. The Q3 growth forecast was revised upward from 2.2% to 4.1%. The third forecast for the last quarter of 2014 revised up from 0.4% to 1.1%