One issue on the tip of everyone’s tongue these days in Tbilisi—along with the August holidays and the risks of COVID-19—is the newly-rehabilitated Chavchavadze Avenue, which was recently reopened to traffic. Why is this issue so “popular”?

Since its start, the pandemic has spread to more than 180 countries, with governments around the world each reacting differently to the new global threat. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker gauges the strictness of countries’ responses using a stringency index, which compares governmental policies over several dimensions.

On 28 May, Georgia announced its fourth anti-crisis plan, in which the government will subsidize 4 percent of the interest rate of mortgage loans for five years. The subsidy will be issued for loans not exceeding 200,000 GEL and will only apply to those taking mortgages for the purchase of residential apartments that are newly built or under construction, from 1 June 2020 to 1 January 2021. The state will also ensure the completion of ongoing construction.

From a trade perspective, the most important aspects of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement, signed on 27 June 2014, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), are the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures and the food safety standards and technical regulations required for access to European markets. Georgia’s export to the EU is still rather limited, and one possible cause for this deficiency, amongst others, is the limited capacity to comply with food safety regulations and standards.

In April 2020, total generation and consumption nearly balanced (944 mln kWh of generation and 941 mln kWh of consumption), with power generation exceeding consumption by only 3 mln. kWh (corresponding to 0.3% of total generation: Figure 1). This occurred due to the simultaneous decrease in total consumption (7%) and total generation (2%). Interestingly, over the same period, wind power generation increased by a remarkable 23% compared to April 2019.