Social consequences of the crisis will be visible next year

The Georgian Government makes very optimistic prognoses for 2010. It supposes that GDP will increase by 2%, but international institutions are more skeptical, suggesting that the Georgian economy will still be in recession in 2010.

It should be added that the social consequences of the crisis will become more visible next year. Many small companies have gone bankrupt, entrepreneurs have discharged a lot of their personnel, unemployment has increased and the number of people living below the poverty line has also increased.

Analysts make very simple observations. At the Lilo open air market, which is in fact the biggest retail market for consumer goods and clothing, more than 2,000 small traders operate but it has become known that more than 20% of them cannot continue to work there, as they are unable to cover their bank loans because of poor sales and have been forced to close or substantially diminish their activities.

Analysts think that during the last year unemployment has increased dramatically. More than 1/3 of the labour force is out of a job. The tendency for unemployment to decrease, which began in 2003, has recently reversed.