The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) recently acquired 7 tons of high-quality monetary gold valued at $500 million, constituting approximately 11% of its total reserves. This marked the first occasion that Georgia acquired gold for its reserves since it regained independence.

ISET Policy Institute, which since 2011 has been in service of the development agenda of the country through economic policy dialogue and evidence-based economic research condemns the government’s recent actions and reintroduction of the so-called ‘Russian Law’ that jeopardizes country’s European integration and puts its cooperation with authorities on hold until the Georgian government returns into service of the country’s European aspiration.

For the second quarter of 2024, business confidence in Georgia decreased slightly (by 1.3 index points) and reached 16.4. The highest decrease in business confidence is observed in the trade (-7.4) sector. The negative change in BCI for Q2 2024 was driven by decreased past performance as well as less optimistic expectations.

In April 2024, the average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian khachapuri stood at 6.24 GEL, marking a 4.0% increase from April 2023. However, on a month-to-month basis, the price of a single khachapuri decreased by -2.4% compared to March 2024.

As the subject law emerged unexpectedly in the legislative sphere and was processed and approved at