A total of 162 of Georgia’s top-scoring students on the country’s national NAEC exam have chosen to study at ISET, constituting the third intake of first-year students for the institute’s BA program. The number of students set to graduate in 2023 is clearly indicative of the prestige and popularity of ISET degrees, and the figure has doubled since the second generation of BA students began their studies in 2018.

In the last two weeks, the lari depreciated, once again, against the US dollar. Georgian currency lost about eight tetri against its American counterpart, causing quite a stir in the media, among political groups and economic experts. While government authorities claimed that the recent developments are short-term fluctuations driven by negative expectations, Turkish lira depreciation, dollar’s global strengthening, and are therefore not connected to the fundamentals of the Georgian economy, the members of the opposition were quick to blame incompetent fiscal and monetary policy.

In March 2019, the national average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri fell to 3.51 GEL, which is 0.8% lower month-over-month (since February 2019), however it is also 1.1% lower year-over-year (in comparison to March 2018). The main contributors to the MoM deflation within the Khachapuri Index were cheese down by 1.9%, milk by 0.8%, and butter by 1.3%.

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri in September 2018 was 3.56 GEL, which was 3.7% higher month-on-month (m/m, as compared to the previous month), and 2.1% lower year-on-year (y/y, as compared to the same month last year). However, khachapuri became cheaper for those earning in foreign currency as a result of the y/y depreciation of the lari relative to both the USD and EUR in September 2018.

Editor reviews all ISET documents submitted by ISET-PI Centre Heads and researchers, including but not limited to blogs, indices, reports, summaries, and other miscellaneous texts for English accuracy and comprehension, as well as for narrative cohesion and clarity.