The project aims to settle the Financial Soundness Indicators compilation based on recommendations of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and use them to analyze business climate and financial sector stability of Georgia. The main objective of the study is to assess the financial sector stability/vulnerability over time and compare with a set of benchmark countries in the context of the overall investment climate situation Georgia and in the region.

The question of the title seems to be a rhetorical one. With the 2008 global financial crisis fresh in our minds, the logic of the vicious cycle between the economic slowdown, troubles in the banking sector, credit crunch, and the subsequent industrial decline reinforcing the credit conundrums seems quite apparent.

The scars of the 2008 global financial crisis and the festering wounds of the ongoing European debt crisis seem to have obscured one simple textbook truth.

I am writing this post in the wake of Florian Biermann’s excellent piece on the role of culture in the economic life of Georgia. The debate itself is infinitely fascinating, as culture is truly one of those complex, stupendously vast concepts, which I find very difficult to grasp, let alone define or analyze.

Georgia’s growth performance since independence has gone through extremes, from an unprecedented -44.9 percent in 1992 to 12.3 percent in 2007. Although growth rates temporarily fell in the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war and the world financial crisis they have since then recovered to 7 percent in 2011