The global economy remains in a volatile state amid the prolonged effects of the combined negative shocks of the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, high inflation, and the tightening monetary policy. Although the global economy remained resilient at the beginning of the year, the situation is expected to worsen.

Geostat has released its rapid estimate of real GDP growth for February 2023. The estimated growth stands at 5.8%, while the average real GDP growth for January-February 2023 reached 7.1%.

Recently, Geostat has released the preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2021, which now stands at 29.9%. The real GDP growth rate reached 9.9% year-on-year in July 2021. Consequently, the estimated real GDP for the first seven months of 2021 amounted to 12.2%.

The real GDP growth rate amounted to -11.5% year-on-year for January 2021. As a result of the update, the growth forecast for Q1 of 2021 remained unchanged, at -5.4%. ISET-PI’s second forecast for Q2 of 2021 puts GDP growth at a positive 11%.

The average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian khachapuri stood at 4.62 GEL in November 2020. This is 4.5% higher MoM (compared to October 2020), and 12% higher YoY (in comparison to November of 2019). The index maintaining an upward trend at this time of the year is typical and relates to the increasing price of cheese (due to the reduced supply of fresh milk).