Geostat has released its GDP growth estimate for the first quarter of 2018. The Q1 growth stands at 5.2 percent, which is 1.1 percentage points above the recent ISET-PI forecast. ISET-PI’s forecast of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2018 stands at 5.9 percent - up from 5.1 percent in April.

In February 2017, Georgia experienced the largest gap between generation and consumption in the last decade. This was followed by an even greater gap in March 2017. The size of those gaps, and the fact that the historical trend was suggesting an increase in the electricity gap, prompted policy proposals emphasizing the need to encourage investments in power generation.

During the last decade, real GDP of Georgia has been steadily increasing, while share of agriculture has been decreasing. The share of agricultural output in total GDP decreased from 6.7% on 2016 to 6.2% in 2017. Agricultural output decreased in absolute terms as well by 2.6% in 2017 compared to 2016.

ISET continues its student policy seminar series, this time with Mariam Katsadze, Mariam Dvalishvili, Tsotne Marghia, Elene Ghviniashvili, and Giorgi Nebulishvili presenting their research results under the supervision of Eric Livny, President of ISET, and Yaroslava Babych, head of the Macroeconomic Policy Research Center, at the ISET Policy Institute.

Based on November 2017 data, the forecast for GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 remained at 4.6%. Real GDP growth rate reached 3.7 % y-o-y in November 2017. As a result, estimated real GDP growth for the first eleven months of 2017 was 4.8%.