“It is an honor for me to be standing here, at ISET, in the best school of economics in the region” – with these words, Nodar Khaduri, the Minister of Finance of Georgia, started his presentation on March 10, 2014.

The growth forecast for the 1st quarter of 2014 has been revised downward from 5.6% to 5.3%. The growth forecast for the 2nd quarter of 2014 has been targeted at 5.9%. Meanwhile, Geostat has updated the GDP annual growth estimate of 2013 from 3.1% to 3.2%.

Assume you have lent your brother 1000 laris, and because he is a close family member, you do not charge interest from him. One day you get a phone call from your brother, and he offers you to pay back the debt either today or one year from now. What would you choose? If you act in line with standard economic theory, you would choose to get the money back today.

The frenzied seasonal agricultural activities – purchases of plants, seeds, fertilizers, investment in food processing, as well as the upcoming elections, invigorated real economic activity in March 2014. According to the GeoStat primary estimates, in this month the y-o-y real economic growth reached 8.3%. As a result, the primary growth rate for the first quarter of 2014 increased to 7.4 %.

On the 15th of March 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a seminal speech to the congress, outlining the four rights that he considered essential for consumers: the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard. Ever since Kennedy’s speech, the idea of consumer protection blossomed both in theory and in practice. In this year, 52 years after Kennedy’s speech, Georgia will pass a new law on the protection of consumer rights.