After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was believed that tourism might become one of Georgia’s “locomotive” sectors. While the Shevardnadze government failed to develop this potential, after the Rose Revolution, tourism became a top priority. Each year since 2005, the direct effect of tourism (i.e. the money spent by tourists) alone has contributed 6-7% of Georgia’s total GDP. Georgia is a net exporter of services, and tourism accounts for about 60% of these service exports. This is important income for the country, helping to finance the country’s la...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Apr
24
Feb
27
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is critical to every developing county, and Georgia is no exception in this regard. Georgia wants to grow out of poverty and catch up with the economically more developed regions of the world – for this to happen, foreign resources are needed, in particular if the domestic savings rate is as low as in Georgia.
Yet FDI is not only about the capital which is made available to the economy but also, and even more importantly, about trust foreigners have into the Georgian economy. It is one thing to make cheerful statements abo...
Jul
11
What is a family? Posing this question to a child in, say, Sweden, would almost surely lead to the answer “mum, dad, and children”. What would be the answer in Georgia? In Georgia, a child would most likely answer “grandmother, grandfather, mum, dad, and children”. The multigenerational family, nowadays almost unknown in the economically more developed parts of the world, is still very common in Georgia.
2013 data of UNICEF derived from a sample of roughly 3000 Georgian households reveal the extent of this phenomenon. According to these data, in ab...
Jun
06
“I’m Georgian, and therefore I am European.” These were the words late Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania chose to express Georgia’s EU aspirations when speaking in front of the Council of Europe in 1999. Reading very much like Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”, Zhvania’s dramatic statement conveyed twin desires: i) to join the European family of nations and ii) to break out of Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, its political, economic, and cultural domination of Georgia since early 19th century.
On June 27, the European Union plans to sign...
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