Looking at consumption and generation trends, it is evident that since August 2018 consumption typically exceeded generation. The negative generation-consumption gap also remained throughout April, amounting to 45 mln. kWh, with a total power generation of 966 mln. kWh and consumption of 1,012 mln. kWh. Yet why has the generation-consumption gap remained negative since August 2018? Should we also expect the negative gap to persist over the following months?

In May 2019, Georgian power plants generated 1,156 mln. kWh of electricity. This represents a 0.4% decrease in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2018, total generation in May was 1,161 mln. kWh). The decrease in generation on a yearly basis comes from the decrease in thermal power generation (-99.8 %), more than offsetting the increase in hydro and wind power generation (+7% and 17% respectively).

On 27-28 May, ISET organized a Data Hackathon in the framework of the “Building Capacity in Modern Data Analysis in Georgia”, a project being carried out with Tartu University.

Land O'Lakes International Development is leading an innovative, demand-driven Safety and Quality Investment in Livestock (SQIL) project to improve food safety and quality within Georgia’s dairy and beef value chains. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (via Food for Progress) and aims to reduce losses, improve food safety and quality from farm to fork, and to boost competitiveness, productivity, and trade within the Georgian dairy and beef market systems.

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.