Geostat has published its rapid estimate of real GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2018, and their estimated growth stands at 4.8%, which is 1.1 percentage point above ISET-PI’s most recent forecast.

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri in the first month of this year is 3.62 GEL, which is 3.2% lower – m onth-on-month (compared to the previous month), and 2.5% lower year-on-year (from January 2018).

BCI in the first quarter of 2019 has worsened, dropping to 22.6 index points, which is a 7.4 index point loss over the previous quarter. The BCI drop is driven by worsening in the past performance and expectations in a number of the business sectors. Interestingly, companies in the construction industry assessed their past performance most pessimistically, however they display the most optimistic expectations. While the private sector expectations tend to worsen, they continue to remain positive.

In January 2019, Georgian power plants generated 1011 mln. kWh of electricity (Figure 1). This represents a 0.3% decrease in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2018, total generation in January was 1014 mln. kWh.) The decrease in generation on a yearly basis comes from decrease in hydro and wind power generation (-11% and -18%), more than offsetting the increase in thermal power generation (+22%).

Georgia’s food & agricultural exports almost hit their 1 billion USD threshold, attaining a historic maximum since independence – and that certainly sounds like something to celebrate! However, the respective imports have also increased and broken records. As a result, the trade balance (the difference between export and import) remained virtually unchanged at (-394) million USD.