On June 13, ISET hosted Dr. Dmitry Shapiro from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who presented his paper “Microfinance and Dynamic Incentives”.

ISET will be offering an exciting new course in the 5th mini-term – “Corporate Finance Applied to a Developing Economy.” The course will be taught by Paul-Henri Forestier, former Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Georgia.

“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 main goal of this project was to develop a neutral platform for regular discussion of Georgian government policies, donor-financed programs to promote inclusive growth A total of seven debates and thee project presentations were hosted at ISET as part of this project on topics ranging from farmer cooperation to family farming, to tourism, to vocational training systems, to SME development, to access to energy.

The Georgian economy faces many challenges, not least of which is access to finance and the extremely high cost of financing private enterprises. With the cost of borrowing (real interest rate) reaching 17.3% on average in April 2013, businesses find it very difficult to function, let alone invest in innovative technologies, long-term growth, and development.