The PMC Research Center team recently co-authored the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) paper entitled Policy Responses to COVID-19 and the Green Transition: Emerging Good Practices in Eurasia.  

We recently started working on a new project aiming to promote high-quality international education and to provide secondary-level education to students from the six Eastern Partnership countries, funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

On December 16, PMC Research conducted a presentation and public discussion on the findings of its research entitled “Electricity Market Prices and Georgia’s Energy Security,” which was aimed at drawing attention to the issue of electricity prices, their importance in energy security, and electricity supply security.

We recently started working on a project, aiming to enhance the spatial and economic development of the Georgian city of Batumi.  

The Employment Tracker is a new periodic publication developed by PMC Research Center, in collaboration with Jobs.ge. The tracker produces valuable insights into the Georgian labor market as it lays out the trajectory of employment and salaries, most demanded job categories, and expectations of specific economic sectors regarding their employment plans. Using real-time data, the insights produced by the tracker can prove crucial to rapid analysis and decision-making process with regards to the labor market. The publication illustrates a 6-month trend of individuals receiving salary and the number of vacancies posted on Jobs.ge. Additionally, in every quarter based on the BAG Index Survey results, the Employment Tracker will provide information on changes in the number of employees of the Business Association Georgia (BAG) member companies and their expectations regarding the changes in employment.    

In Georgia, the average cost of a room in a 3-star hotel was 135 GEL per night in December 2021, while the average cost of a room in a 4-star hotel in Georgia was 246 GEL per night and the average cost of a room in a guesthouse was 106 GEL per night. The average cost of a room in a 5-star hotel in Georgia in December 2021 was 423 GEL per night. In Kakheti, the average price was 548 GEL, followed by Tbilisi - 524 GEL, Guria – 398 GEL and Adjara - 391 GEL.

Nearly two years since the outbreak of COVID-19, the spread of the virus itself, vaccination rates, and new variants, continue to shape the speed and strength of economic recovery. In the case of Ukraine, geopolitical and domestic political tensions are also important variables to have been hindering economic growth. In this issue, we provide an overview of the ongoing economic recovery in Ukraine and try to supply an economic forecast for the country for 2022, looking at the performance of each economic sector in the process.

This policy research paper aims to draw the attention of stakeholders in Georgia’s energy sector to the issue of prices, their importance in energy security, and electricity supply security. The paper firstly reviews the existing academic and policy literature and afterwards analyses the current structure of the wholesale electricity market in Georgia to identify different prices and payment schemes. This analysis of the Georgian regulatory framework, along with current data and tendencies, allows us to identify some fundamental issues that are inherent in the structure of the ongoing wholesale electricity market in Georgia. As a result, this policy research paper highlights some challenges that need resolving in order to strengthen the security of supply in the electricity market.

International rankings and indicators help us to understand and assess how countries are performing in different areas. In this bulletin, Ukraine’s positions in international rankings and the dynamics therein are reviewed based on recent data. Its positions will also be compared with other Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova).

The number of international travelers increased by 288.8% in November 2021, compared to the same period of 2020, and declined by 73.0% compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of international visitors increased by 267.2% (2021/2020) and declined by 69.3% (2021/2019), and the number of international tourists increased by 283.2% (2021/2020) and declined by 55.3% (2021/2019). Observing the total number of outbound tourism trips taken by Georgians in 2019 and the pandemic-dominated years since shows that from the beginning of 2021, the demand for international travel among Georgians has demonstrated significant recovery trends, the total number of outbound visits reaching 22.6% of pre-pandemic value in Q3 of 2021, due to vaccination rollout and the easing of entry restrictions in many countries. An evaluation of the common characteristics of Georgian outbound visits shows that the outbound tourism industry is fairly concentrated in terms of the purpose of visit (top 3 purposes amounting 82.4% of total outbound visits) and visited countries (top 4 destinations accounting for 82.9% of total visits), meaning that the alleviation of entry restrictions to such countries positively affects the number of Georgians taking trips abroad.

In Georgia, the average cost of a room in a 3-star hotel was 135 GEL per night in November 2021, while the average cost of a room in a 4-star hotel in Georgia was 226 GEL per night and the average cost of a room in a guesthouse was 101 GEL per night. The average cost of a room in a 5-star hotel in Georgia in November 2021 was 395 GEL per night. In Kakheti, the average price was 555 GEL, followed by Tbilisi - 544 GEL, Guria – 397 GEL and Adjara - 354 GEL.

This paper explores the alternative financial instruments that are or could become available to Georgian SMEs. Through the examination of various secondary sources and several interviews with relevant stakeholders, the paper identifies obstacles and opportunities in the path toward development of two asset-based instruments (leasing and factoring) and two equity-based instruments (crowdfunding and venture capital) that currently have limited availability and/or are being discussed by the regulatory authority of the country. The paper also looks into several innovative practices that are increasingly being implemented around the world to support the creation of alternative sources of finance, namely open banking, regulatory sandboxes, digital banks, and central bank digital currency (CBDC).Based on secondary sources, the paper also includes three case studies on Lithuania, Poland, and Israel. Meanwhile, the paper ultimately provides several recommendations to foster the development of the alternative instruments reviewed in the paper in Georgia.

This quarterly report provides an analysis of economic trends, as well as denoting the challenges and opportunities (in local, regional, and global contexts) across selected value chains within six sectors to improve evidence-based decision-making through the provision of quality information and analytics. The specific sectors are tourism, creative industries, light manufacturing, shared intellectual services, waste management and recycling, along with cross-cutting sectors. The analysis tracks trends from the second quarter of 2021. Please find the full publication in English and the executive summary of the report in Georgian.