Page 12 - GEORptDec19
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EBRD rankings show Georgia lead its region for quality of governance
The poll showed 29% of respondents thought the economic situation in Georgia has deteriorated significantly over the past 12 months. Some 35% believed it had deteriorated somewhat, while 24% said it had not changed. Those who perceived certain improvements were rather few: 8% thought the economic situation had improved somehow, with only 2% thinking that the economic situation in the country had improved significantlyin the last 12 months.
As regards households’ economic situation, 43% said it was bad and 17% said it was very bad, while 37% felt it was good and 2% very good.
Georgia performs the best in terms of quality of governance in the Eastern Europe and Caucasus region, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD’s) 2019-2020 Transition Report for the 37 economies the lender invests in.
The small country is also seen as the best integrated, boasts the second-highest resilience score (trailing only Russia) and does not lag behind its peers in any of the six criteria evaluated by the EBRD report.
EBRD’s transition concept emphasises the importance of strong governance (defined as “who has power, who makes decisions, how other players make their voice heard and how account is rendered”) as one of the six key qualities of a well-functioning market economy, in addition to looking at whether economies are competitive, green, inclusive, resilient and integrated. The transition scores for each of these six dimensions range from 1 to 10, where 10 represents a synthetic frontier corresponding to the standards of a sustainable market economy.
In Eastern Europe and Caucasus, Georgia boasts the best governance score: 6.4 (up from 6.34 in 2018), compared to 5.9 in Russia, which is the second best performer. Georgia’s governance is, according to the EBRD, superior to those of any country in Southeastern Europe.
In terms of competitiveness, Georgia (4.98) lags behind Russia (5.83) and Belarus (5.17). Compared to Central and Southern Europe, Georgia’s competitiveness is superior only to that of Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
12 GEORGIA Country Report December 2019 www.intellinews.com
