Language

Official language
Georgian 87.6%

T-index
0.026%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Azeri, Armenian, Russian, other

English
Moderate proficiency (EF) – 50 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 31/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Tbilisi
Currency: Georgian lari
Population: 3,72 m
Population density: 199/km2

Economy

GDP: 18.7 billion USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 5,042.4USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $3.92 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 72.5% penetration, 2.88 million
Unemployment rate: 18.5% (2020)
Urbanisation: 58.63% (2018)
Literacy: 99.4% (2018)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator

Date format: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00995

Economy

Imports
$8.72 billion (2020). Cars ($717M), Refined Petroleum ($540M), Packaged Medicaments ($351M), Petroleum Gas ($317M), and Copper Ore ($256M), importing mostly from Turkey ($1.48B), Russia ($1.05B), China ($974M), United States ($629M), and Azerbaijan ($490M).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 61% have an account with a financial institution
• 15% have a credit card
• 14% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 83.7 out of 100) ranked 2nd out of 24 European and Central Asian countries, ranked 7th out of 190 countries worldwide (2019, World Bank).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 5th out of 19 Western Asian and northern African countries, 63rd out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$3.92 billion (2020). Copper Ore ($828M), Cars ($403M), Ferroalloys ($250M), Wine ($212M), and Gold ($192M), exporting mostly to China ($499M), Russia ($460M), Azerbaijan ($441M), Bulgaria ($393M), and Turkey ($228M).

Main local online stores
Amazon, Cdiscount.com and Fnac. Other top retail sites include eBay, Carrefour, Rakuten, Google Shopping, Leroy Merlin, La Redoute and Apple sites.

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (rated 71.8 out of 100) ranked 18th out of 45 European countries, ranked 26th out of 186 countries worldwide (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Media

Media language
Georgian, English

Information channels:
Television is the most popular medium although online media are gaining ground as news sources. Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) operates two TV networks. The leading commercial station, Rustavi-2, was a strong critic of the Georgian Dream-led government until a change of ownership in 2019. Foreign channels are available on satellite and cable, including Russian networks. The press carries a broad range of viewpoints but reader numbers are low and reporting tends towards sensationalism. The media environment is among the freest in the former Soviet sphere. The constitution provides for freedom of speech and journalists often criticise officials. US-based Freedom House says the media scene is “robust and competitive, but frequently partisan”.

The press

Rezonansi – private, daily
Kviris Palitra – private, weekly
The Georgian Times – English-language, weekly
Georgia Today – English-language, weekly
The Messenger – English-language daily
Asaval-Dasavali – private, weekly

Television

Georgian Public TV – operates two networks
Rustavi-2 – private
Imedi TV – private
Maestro TV – private
Kavkasia TV – private
Tabula – private
Obieketivi –– private
GDS (Georgian Dream Studio) – private

Radio

Georgian Public Radio – operates two networks
Radio Imedi – private, national news and speech network
Fortuna FM – private, music-based
Radio GIPA – in English, relaying programmes from Western broadcasters, such as BBC and NPR

News agency

GHN – private
InterpressNews – private, pages in English
Civil Georgia – run by UN Association of Georgia, pages in English
Netgazeti – private
Info9 – private
Ambebi.ge – private

Internet Data

Internet users
72.5% penetration, 2.88 million

Share of web traffic by device
50.03% mobile phones, 46.91% computers (laptops and desktops), 3.05% tablet devices, others 0.02%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
29.24 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
20.26 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 100%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G):144.1%

Most popular web search engines
Google (92.57%), Bing (2.93%),Yandex (2.1%), Yahoo (1.91%), Mail.ru (0.21%) , Duckduckgo (0.19%)

Most used social media
Facebook (97.49%), Pinterest (0.96%), YouTube (0.57%), Instagram (0.41%), Twitter (0.35%), Reddit (0.1%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
73.81 yrs (2020)

Average age of the population
38.3 yrs (2020) 

Poverty rate
14.3% (2019)

Ethnicity
Ethnicity is very important in Georgia. There are many non-Georgian ethnic minority groups that live in Georgia. As a result of that, these ethnic groups who are striving for self-determination are challenging Georgia’s sovereignty, for instance, Adjarians and Abkhasians. Discrimination based on ethnic background is prevalent.

Religion
Georgians are predominantly Christian Orthodox. Seventy years of communism and anti-Christian propaganda had ill effects on Christianity in Georgia; many churches were destroyed or converted to other public buildings. Today the Georgian Orthodox Church has a very small (virtually non-existent) influence in the affairs of the State. As a result there is no place for religion at the workplace. Although some religious holidays are statutory holidays in Georgia.

Class
After the break-up of the USSR, the intelligentsia (the middle class) is virtually non-existent. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened over the last 15 years. A large segment of the population is poor. It is more difficult for a person from a poor family to get a job.