Business registration in Georgia drops 12.8% in January

An almost 12.8 percent decrease was observed in the number of businesses registered in January 2015 compared to the same period of 2014, says the National Agency of Public Registry.

Furthermore, official data provided by the Agency showed business registration had reduced by 15.6 percent in January 2015 compared to the previous month.

The reduction was "not surprising” as January was considered as "less active” month in terms of business activities, explained the Agency.

The number of new business entities registered in Georgia in January 2015 reached 3, 385 units. Of this, 96.7 percent were individual entrepreneurs and 3.3 percent were for other profit-driven businesses or organisations.

The Agency said last month’s figures showed a decline in the number of registrations of individual entrepreneurs by 13 percent, while a 5.1 percent drop was observed in the number of registrations of other business ventures, when compared to the same month of 2014.

When the January 2015 data was compared with the previous month (December 2014), figures showed the number of registered individual entrepreneurs decreased by 15 percent and the number of other business ventures decreased by 28.8 percent.

The Agency said a large percentage (53.9 percent) of the 1,823 registered business entities had registered as an individual entrepreneur. The second largest group registered were Limited Liability Companies (1, 395 units), which took 41.2 percent of total registered business entities.

In total, 111 non-profit legal entities, 46 cooperatives, three foreign for-profit legal entities and seven joint-stock companies were registered in January 2015, stated the Agency. (Agenda.ge)