High Hopes Maintained - January 2014

Details: Created: 11 January 2014

ISET PI has updated the forecasts for Georgia’s real GDP growth rates using the November 2013 releases of various economic indicators.

• The growth forecast for the 4th quarter of 2013 has been revised downward from 5.2%to 4.9%. The forecast for the first quarter of 2014 has also been reduced from 6.5% to 5.7%.
• Given the Geostat data for the first three quarters and the ISET-PI forecast for the 4th quarter, the annual growth rate for 2013 is projected to be 2.6%.
• Given these developments, we expect the annual growth rate in 2014 to be 3.6% at the very least and more likely somewhere around 5.8%. Download the full report

GDP Forecast Methodology

The Georgian Index of Leading Economic Indicators provides current-quarter and one-quarter-ahead GDP forecasts for those who need to make business and policy decisions and cannot wait until the official statistics are announced several months later. According to methodology, our forecast is similar to those conducted by leading research institutes around the world. In particular, ISET-PI adapted the methodology that was originally developed by the New Economic School to forecast GDP for the Russian Federation. We would like to acknowledge the help of Prof. Konstantin Styrin (NES) who agreed to share his MATLAB code with ISET-PI, and the assistance of Dr. Andrei Sarychev in modifying and adapting the code for Georgia‘s needs.