Recently, Geostat has released the preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2021, which now stands at 29.9%. The real GDP growth rate reached 9.9% year-on-year in July 2021. Consequently, the estimated real GDP for the first seven months of 2021 amounted to 12.2%.

The World Bank (June 2021) estimates that global GDP growth will reach 5.6% year over year (y/y) in 2021. Though thus rebound is uneven, with growth concentrated mainly in advanced economies and developing countries set for a slower recovery.

The COVID-19 outbreak had a devastating effect on the Georgian economy in 2020. Real GDP contracted by 6.1% according to Geostat’s rapid estimates of economic growth. This was the worst performance of real GDP growth in the country in more than two decades.

The real GDP growth rate amounted to -11.5% year-on-year for January 2021. As a result of the update, the growth forecast for Q1 of 2021 remained unchanged, at -5.4%. ISET-PI’s second forecast for Q2 of 2021 puts GDP growth at a positive 11%.

According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP contracted by 3.8% year over year (y/y) in Q3 2020. As a result, the estimated real GDP declined by 5.0% in the first nine months of 2020, which is in line with the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) and National Bank of Georgia’s (NBG) latest projections of -5% y/y (from October and November correspondingly).