The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread economic distress in many countries around the world. For the first time since 2009, the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to have declined in 2020. Alongside other sectors of the economy, such impacts are also being felt by the food and agricultural sector. The pandemic has affected food security and nutrition, supply chains, food and livestock production, and food safety.

Confidence is retreating after a recovery that lasted about 6 months. Last month, in spite of a slight decline of the CCI, we could hold on to the belief that we had reached a plateau in the recovery from the low numbers observed last April.

This quarterly report provides an analysis of economic trends, as well as denoting the challenges and opportunities (in local, regional, and global contexts) in the selected value chains within six sectors to improve evidence-based decision-making by providing quality information and analytics. These specific sectors are tourism, creative industries, light manufacturing, shared intellectual services, waste management, and recycling, along with cross-cutting sectors. The analysis tracks trends from 2014 to the third quarter of 2020.

In 2020, Georgian power plants generated 11,160 mln. kWh of electricity. This represents a 6% decrease in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2019, total generation was 11,865 mln. kWh). The decrease in generation on a yearly basis comes from decrease in hydro (-8%) and thermal power (-1%), more than offsetting the increase in wind power generation (+7%).

In January 2021, the average price of cooking one Imeretian khachapuri stood at 4.84 GEL. Compared to the previous month (December 2020) the Khachapuri Index lost 3.5%. In annual terms (compared to January 2020), however, the index added 12.6%. As shown in the chart, all khachapuri ingredients except eggs contributed to the yearly inflation of the Khachapuri Index. The price of only one ingredient – eggs – decreased by 1.9% compared to the previous year (January 2020).