On the 14th of February, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia published the draft version of the Socio-economic Development Strategy 2020 (SDS). This comprehensive document identifies the main socio-economic challenges Georgia will be facing in the next years and presents a strategy how to cope with them. The overall goal is to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth by the end of this decade.
The growth forecast for the 4th quarter of 2013 is unchanged at 4.9%, suggesting annual growth of 2.6%, while Geostat’s flash estimates are 6.9% for 2013Q4 and 3.1% for the whole year.
In recent months, ISET‐PI has devoted considerable time to explore the reasons behind the sharp decline in annual real GDP growth in 2013 (from 6.2% in 2012 to 3.3%). With official data for the whole of 2013 finally becoming available, we are taking this opportunity to revisit our previous conclusions and offer new insights.
On January 31, 2014, ISET hosted the third of a series of events concerning inclusive growth. The topic of the event was Vocational education and training (VET) in Georgia.
Why should we care about income inequality? According to Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Jason Furman, “greater inequality leads to more political instability, and greater political instability leads to lower growth” (“Economic Consequences of Income Inequality”, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas: Journal Proceedings, 1998, pp. 221-232).