Tamar Sulukhia, the ISET Director, and Gogita Todradze, the Director of GeoStat, have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the International School of Economics at TSU (ISET), ISET’s Policy Institute, and the National Statistics Office of Georgia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives and perceptions in many important ways: the value we put on face-to-face interactions, the importance of personal space, communication with loved ones, and much more. Some of these perceptions and social changes may actually outlive the pandemic.

On 29 December 2020, the parliament of Georgia approved the state budget for 2021, which includes allocations of around 18.3 billion GEL. From which the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture (MEPA) will receive 451.6 million (2.5% of the total budget allocation). MEPA will direct 10 mln. GEL towards the Environmental Protection and Agriculture Development Program (2.2% of MEPA’s total budget), with around 389.6 mln. (86.3% of MEPA’s total budget) to be allocated to agricultural development, and approximately 51.9 mln. GEL (11.5%) to be spent on environmental protection.

In February 2021, Georgian power plants generated 692 mln. kWh of electricity. This represents a 19% decrease in total generation, compared to the previous year (February 2020, the total generation was 851 mln. kWh). The decrease in generation on a yearly basis comes from the decrease of 20%, 17% and 13% in hydro, thermal, and wind power generation, respectively.

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.