GDP Forcast

Details: Created: 11 December 2014

ISET-PI has updated its forecasts for Georgia’s real GDP growth rates using the October 2014 releases of various economic indicators.

• Based on the October data, the growth forecast for the last quarter of 2014 was revised upward from 1.1% to 3.6%.
• We have started to forecast the first quarter of 2015, with the initial forecast standing at 3.2%.
• Meanwhile, Geostat’s “rapid estimate” growth forecast for the month of October is 3.5%.
• We started drawing conclusions about the annual growth rate for 2014 at the beginning of the year (see our January and February publications for a note on our methodology). We used the forecasts available for each quarter to predict that Georgia’s GDP growth in 2014 will be 5.3%. This figure is quite close to the official 5% annual growth forecast made by the Georgian government. Download the full report

Details: Created: 11 November 2014

ISET-PI has updated its forecasts for Georgia’s real GDP growth rates using the September 2014 releases of various economic indicators.
• Based on the data from September, we have made the sixth update of the Q3 forecast. The Q3 growth forecast was revised upward from 2.2% to 4.1%.
• The third forecast for the last quarter of 2014 revised up from 0.4% to 1.1%
• Meanwhile, Geostat has released the official quarterly GDP growth rate for the third quarter of 2014 which is 5.5% (but this data is still preliminary and will be revised in the future).
• From the start of the year, we started to draw some conclusions about the annual growth rate for 2014 (see our January and February publications for a note on the methodology). We have used the forecasts available for each quarter to predict that GDP growth in Georgia in 2014 will be 4.2%. This forecast is quite close to the estimates of EBRD and the World Bank, which are 4% and 5% annually, respectively.

Details: Created: 11 October 2014

ISET-PI has updated its forecasts for Georgia’s real GDP growth rates using August 2014 releases of various economic indicators.
• Based on the data from August, the fifth update of the Q3 growth forecast was yet again revised downward from 3.7% to 2.2%.
• The second update of the growth forecast for the last quarter of 2014 was also revised from 1.7% down to 0.4%.
• Meanwhile, Geostat has released the “rapid estimates” of monthly growth rate for August 2014. The August estimate is still a hefty 5.2%, although this data is preliminary and is set to be further revised in the future.
• In the beginning of 2014, we started to forecast the annual growth rate for 2014 (see our January and February publications for a note on the methodology). Based on the forecasts available for each quarter, we predict that GDP growth in Georgia in 2014 will be 3.5%. This forecast represents a downgrade from our earlier prediction of 4.3% annual growth. The downward revision carries through, even if we use a slightly different methodology to forecast annual growth. Download the full report

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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.