Over the past decade, Georgia has experienced a notable increase in total exports, rising from approximately 2.86 billion USD in 2014 to over 6.55 billion USD in 2024. This represents a more than twofold increase, reflecting broader growth in the country's export sector.

We live in a world where the production of a single good typically involves manufacturing inputs from many different countries around the globe. For example, a typical iPhone production takes place in as many as 7 countries, including the USA, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and even Switzerland. This is what is known to economists as global value chains (GVC). The emergence of GVC more than two decades ago transformed the way economists think about countries’ comparative advantage and specialization in production.

The emergence of GVC, global value chains, around more than two decades ago transformed the way economists think about countries’ comparative advantage and specialization in production. It has also transformed the understanding of what it takes for a country to be successfully integrated into world trade networks and derive maximum benefit from global trade.

As Stephen Dowling put it in his BBC News article a few years ago, “when it comes to crossing the road, there's no such thing as an international standard. Every country does it differently.” How people drive and cross the road, according to Dowling, is a matter of a country’s cultural values. Is it really?