Baku, Azerbaijan, October 4
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Georgia’s rural population decreased slightly, from 42.6 percent in 2015 to 41.3 percent in the beginning of 2019, Trend reports via ISET Policy Institute, a Tblisi State University International School of Economics based think-tank.
The agricultural sector’s share of total GDP has also declined, from 9.1 percent in 2015 to 7.7 percent in 2018. Despite this production figures have increased, with a 6.4 percent increase in production over the previous year.
Crop yields increased by 10.9 percent, and animal production experienced an increase of 2.1 percent compared to 2017. Looking at the self-sufficiency ratio, the highest decrease was for grapes, followed by vegetables, and the highest increase was for meat, followed by maize.
Revenue from sales of agricultural products in 2018 has increased compared to the 2014‐2017 period; both in percentage and absolute terms. Increased production is the most likely reason for this result.
As for Georgia’s food and non-alcoholic beverage prices, the month-over-month prices increased by 1.2 percent in September 2019 compared to September 2018, adding 0.37 percentage points to the CPI. The main driver was price fluctuation in the following sub-groups: vegetables (+8.1 percent), fruit and grapes (+7.1 percent) and milk, cheese, and eggs (-5.7 percent).
