Page 11 - bne IntelliNews Georgia country report October 2017

residence permit there had been cancelled in March, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has reported. He now faces likely deportation to Georgia. He was released later in the day, but will likely be deported to Georgia. Mikheil Saakashvili called the Ukrainian authorities' decision to detain his brother an attempt to intimidate him and prevent him from travelling to the country after he announced his intention to do so. The former head of state and former governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, a position from which he quit in November 2016, now finds himself stateless. Georgia, which does not allow double citizenship revoked his passport after he acquired Ukrainian citizenship in 2015; and, in late July, the Ukrainian migration service announced that his Ukrainian citizenship had been revoked because he had failed to disclose that he was wanted in Georgia. However, Saakashvili himself and many observers believe that the real reason behind the revocation of his Ukrainian citizenship is a personal vendetta.
Georgian opposition party United National Movement (UNM) has urged the government to investigate an audio recording published on the strana.ua website by Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, Georgiatoday reported on August 14. In the recording, Lexus impersonates Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov in order to have a conversation with his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Mghebrishvili about the fate of Georgia's stateless former president Mikheil Saakashvili. During the hoax conversation, Mghebrishvili turns down Avakov's offer to extradite Saakashvili to Georgia to be prosecuted, claiming that "we do not want to create a hero out of him. The situation has been stable here and we are coping fine without him. If he arrives, there will be unrest". The press office of the Georgian interior ministry denied that the conversation had ever taken place, claiming in a statement that "it is not feasible to think that the ministers of two countries would discuss national topics through non-protected telephone communication". The Russian pranksters, however, claim that the recording is authentic and that they are open to sending it to Georgia for analysis.
3.0 Macro Economy
Georgia - Main Macro 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 1Q17 Indicators
GDP real growth (y/y, %)
7.2 6.4 3.4 4.6 2.9 2.2 5.1
GDP (per capita, $) 3,230.67 3,523.40 3,599.60 3,676.17 3,766.63 3,852.48 859.5
GDP: Final consumption expenditure, (local currency)
22,487.3 23,733.2 23,671.8 25,570.7 27,318.7 28,228.83 7,366.84
GDP: Gross capital formation, (local currency)
6,368.00 7,575.39 6,652.91 8,688.85 10,004.33 10,999.8 2,208.70
GDP: Exports, (local currency)
8,822.85 9,982.95 11,997.87 12,518.27 14,206.79 14,749.59 3,880.87
GDP: Imports, (local currency)
13,334.19 15,124.25 15,475.18 17,627.34 19,774.26 20,056.61 5,138.37
Source: bne IntelliNews, CEIC
11 GEORGIA Country Report October 2017 www.intellinews.com