©
Flickr@Thiery49
Georgia Travel Guide
©
Flickr@Thiery49
The economic indicators give hope that improvements are possible, but during your trip to Georgia you are bound to notice that the country's situation is really quite complicated.
If, before you leave for your trip to Georgia, you cast an eye over the economic situation in the country you'll see that it is complicated. Georgia's GDP is a little over $8 billion. Although it has a superb and very encouraging growth rate of 9%, Georgia has not yet managed to leave the ranks of the 25 poorest countries on the planet. According to the latest official statistics it is estimated that 54% of the population lives under the poverty line. The situation is just as dramatic for children, one in two of whom live under the poverty line. They also have a worrying amount of external debt, some £2 billion. Georgia also has a problem trying to develop its exports. At the moment, they import more than 3 times as much as they export. Georgia's main commercial partners are, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, the United States, France, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and China.
In the middle of various sectors like the production of oil, metal, natural gas, plastics, tobacco, nuclear energy, and white goods, the transport sector, pharmaceutical industry, paper making, aeronautics, the automobile and cosmetics industries, the tourist sector has real problems taking off and is not one of the government's priorities. Recently the number of visitors has gone up by about 5% but it is too dependent on how politically stable the country is to be able to say that this will continue. At the moment, barely 300,000 people come to see the superb countryside and rich heritage of Georgia.
