Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index of UN (T&T CI) ranked Georgia 73, in 2011. With this rank, Georgia topped South Caucasus region nevertheless, maintaining the same rank as in 2009. This could mean that not much had improved during those three years in terms of competitiveness of Georgia as a brand in the business of tourism. Looking at the data on international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts – they both have been steadily increasing since 2000. From the first glance this upward trend seems promising. We have more tourist...

As Harry S Truman once noted – “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own”.  While Georgia was able to grow its economy, this growth did not trickle all the way down. The overall number of jobs did not increase, resulting in very high unemployment, especially among youth and recent university graduates (up to 35% according to some counts). Unemployment hurts the individuals involved and the economy as a whole. As an individual you lose income, and still worth, may see your value in the labor market (...

Car export was 20.5% of the total exports in 2011 and it had the highest share in total exports, among all export goods. What a striking fact! So, what does this mean for Georgia and how can we become regionally more competitive in car-trade? How can we meet the demand on European, Japanese and US cars in Caucasian and Central Asian markets by becoming a regional trade and transit center for those cars? Since 2005, car exports have been steadily increasing, in value and as a share of total exports. The correlation between car exports and imports is 0,67...

Putting “choose” in quotation marks is the main part of the title and a hint to my subjective view on the issue to be discussed in this post. Based on my own experience and on the experience of my friends and acquaintances I came to the conclusion that most Georgian youths do not autonomously choose to get higher education, rather their choice is made directly by their parents. This is the case when parents impose their will upon their children. This is a case of paternalism, which means imposing your own will upon another person for his/her own good. Th...