Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Uzbekistan’s inflation rises to 6.4% in September while Georgia’s holds at 5.6%
Consumer prices in Uzbekistan rose 6.4% in the year to September, 0.7% in the month and 4.2% since December, the statistics committee’s release of 5 October shows, against 8.0% a year earlier. In Georgia annual inflation stayed at 5.6% in September, unchanged from August, with transport up 18.7% on fuel, Geostat said on 2 October.
Georgia’s party-ban suit goes to the full court as Kos calls the candidacy paper-only
The Constitutional Court’s First Chamber has referred Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the opposition parties to the court’s plenum, in a ruling taken without an oral hearing on 6 October that cannot be appealed. That evening Marta Kos called Georgia “a candidate country only on paper”, and the European Parliament debates the attempt to ban them on Wednesday with a vote on Thursday.
Georgian Dream dismisses the European Parliament’s resolution a day before the debate
Every resolution the European Parliament has adopted on Georgia in recent times is not worth the price of the paper it could be printed on, the chair of parliament’s legal affairs committee Archil Gorduladze said on Tuesday, a day before MEPs debate attempts by Georgian Dream to ban opposition parties and two days before they vote on a resolution.
Georgia’s 2027 budget reaches committee at 37.56 billion lari and a 2.5% deficit
The first version of Georgia’s 2027 state budget began its committee readings on Monday with consolidated receipts of 37.531 billion lari, 29.52 billion of them taxes, and spending of 37.562 billion, first deputy finance minister Giorgi Kakauridze told the education committee. It assumes 5% real growth, nominal GDP above 126 billion lari, a deficit of 2.5% of GDP and government debt at 31.6%.
Four German party foundations stop work in Georgia after Tbilisi rejects their grants
The Konrad Adenauer and Friedrich Naumann foundations closed their Tbilisi offices on 30 September after the government rejected on 28 July the grant applications the Law on Grants obliges them to file, and the Heinrich Böll and Friedrich Ebert foundations have followed, JAMnews reported on 2 and 3 October. Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said foreign political parties and their foundations “have no political mission to carry out in Georgia”.
Tbilisi says free power to Abkhazia cost Enguri 64 million lari and its 2025 profit
Georgia’s fiscal risks analysis for 2027 counts 64 million lari that Enguri lost in 2025 by supplying Abkhazia free, up from 45 million in 2024, bm.ge reported on Friday. The plant sent 1.465 billion kWh there, sold 1.606 billion at home and exported 309.2 million, and the ministry says it would have made a 61 million lari profit instead of losing 3.7 million.
The UK sanctions 4 Georgians for Kremlin disinformation and names Tskhinvali’s leaders
Britain’s package of 1 October lists 23 individuals and entities and 8 ships. Among them are 7 people “involved in spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation”, 4 of them Georgian nationals, and the serving and former heads of the Russian-installed authority in South Ossetia. The same evening a few dozen people rallied in Tbilisi’s Rike Park for Mikheil Saakashvili’s release, against the interior ministry’s refusal.
Georgia's budget annex lists 8 arbitration claims at $4.8 billion, half its 2027 tax plan
The fiscal-risk analysis attached to Georgia's 2027 draft, published on Thursday, lists 8 pending international arbitrations with claims of $4.8 billion, about 12.6 billion lari and half of the draft's 25.2 billion lari tax plan. Two cases already lost, ENKA's over the Namakhvani dam and Inter RAO's, carry about $582 million between them, and ENKA took its award to a Washington court in September.
Georgia publishes 2027 spending with no revenue line as the central bank curbs credit
Georgia's finance ministry sent parliament a first 2027 draft on 30 September with spending of GEL 37.56 billion, growth of 5%, GDP of GEL 126.4 billion and GDP per head of $12,000, and its release carried no revenue, deficit or debt figure. On the same afternoon the National Bank announced tighter payment-to-income limits for borrowers earning GEL 1,500 to 2,500 a month.
Georgia switches off its intraday power market for 9 months from Thursday
The Georgian Energy Exchange suspends its intraday electricity market from 1 October to 1 July 2027, under a government resolution of 8 September and a regulator’s rule change of 18 September, the exchange said in a notice dated Tuesday. Trading on the day-ahead market continues as usual. Participants lose access to the intraday trading system for the 9 months and keep their registered portfolios.
The World Bank prices the corridor at $55 billion to 2040, with $30 billion of it beyond the track
A World Bank report published on Monday says the Trans-Caspian corridor’s development could triple its volumes, halve its travel times, add 3.3% to the 9 countries’ GDP and create 2 million jobs by 2040. The bill it attaches is at least $25 billion of physical infrastructure and an estimated $30 billion of enabling investment. With reforms, the Bank says, the volumes would quadruple.
A Turkish engineer is missing after a drone hits a Turkish-owned bulker nearing Novorossiysk
The Palau-flagged bulk carrier Aroyat, 18,315 tonnes deadweight and operated for Istanbul companies, was hit by an aerial drone on 27 September as it approached Novorossiysk from Poti, the Turkish maritime press and The Maritime Executive reported on Tuesday. Fire took the accommodation block and the stern, and the ship has been towed towards Turkey. Of the 16 crew, the Turkish second engineer is missing.
AIIB signs €158 million for Georgia's Kakheti roads under the Trans-Caspian corridor project
Georgia and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank signed a loan of about €158.5 million on Monday at the bank's annual meeting in Doha, the finance ministry said: two new four-lane sections of the Kakheti highway, Badiauri to Chalaubani and Chalaubani to Bakurtsikhe, and a road from Gurjaani to Telavi, 67.4 kilometres in all, inside a €316.8 million road package the World Bank is co-financing.
Customs chiefs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye sign a Middle Corridor protocol in Goygol
The fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye trilateral committee on customs sat in Goygol district on Monday: Shahin Baghirov for Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, deputy trade minister Sezai Ucarmak for Türkiye and Revenue Service head Mamuka Baratashvili for Georgia. Faster transit procedures on the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway were named the priorities, and a protocol was signed, APA reported at 11:50 Baku time.
Baku sees a territorial claim in a Georgian church statement, and Tbilisi sees no tension
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry told the Georgian Patriarchate on Friday that its statement on the church of St George at Kurmukhi, in Gakh district, contained territorial claims and advised it against following the Armenian Church’s example. By Saturday prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze had said there was no tension with Baku, and on Monday an EU-affairs analyst in Tbilisi said everyone had made mistakes.
Georgian Railway buys 200 wagons from Russia for $9.6 million after every tender failed
The railway signed a direct contract with the Roslavl wagon-repair plant for 200 open wagons at $48,000 each, on a decision of its supervisory board of 27 August, Novosti Gruzii reported on 24 September. Director general Lasha Abashidze gave two reasons: no European maker builds freight wagons for the 1,520 mm gauge, and the Russian price was the lowest.
Georgia’s 19 banks earned 2.56 billion lari in 8 months, 20% more than a year earlier, with Bank of Georgia and TBC holding 87% of the profit and 75% of the assets
The National Bank of Georgia’s figures for January to August 2026, as Business Media Georgia tabulated them on Thursday, give the sector a net profit of 2,564.6 million lari, up 20% on the same months of 2025, on assets of 115.2 billion lari. Bank of Georgia earned 1,291 million and TBC 936.8 million, together 87% of the total, and the two hold 75% of the assets; 15 banks were profitable and 4 lost money, Silk Bank most, at 18.26 million lari.
Three Caucasus capitals sell one corridor at the UN in a day: Kobakhidze’s $7 billion to 2032, Pashinyan’s 26% rising to 49%, and Bayramov’s direct dialogue with Mirzoyan
Irakli Kobakhidze told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Georgia will put $7 billion into its transit infrastructure by 2032, the railway’s modernisation, new highways, the Anaklia deep-water port, a new international airport for Tbilisi and a fibre-optic cable under the Black Sea, and that Georgia “reaffirms its readiness to maintain dialogue with all international partners willing to work with us on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality”; the words European Union did not occur in the speech, Novosti Gruzii noted on Friday morning, and 20% of the country “remains under the occupation of the Russian Federation”. The same day Nikol Pashinyan told the hall that Armenia “will initially have a 26 percent stake in the TRIPP Development Company” and that “in the 50th year, the Republic of Armenia’s share will become 49 percent”, Armenpress reported at 05:24 on Friday, and on the margins Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan reviewed the progress since the Washington summit and “agreed to continue direct dialogue”, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said through Report.az at 08:16.
The ADB and the EBRD publish their autumn forecasts a day apart: Central Asia and Mongolia grow 5.8% on one count while the Caucasus slips on the other
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development put Central Asia and Mongolia at 5.8% growth in 2026 and 5.3% in 2027 in its Regional Economic Prospects published on Thursday: Kyrgyzstan 8.7% this year, Tajikistan 7.9%, Uzbekistan 7.5%, Mongolia and Turkmenistan 6.3%, Kazakhstan 4.7%. The Asian Development Bank’s September Outlook, published on Wednesday, raised Uzbekistan to 7.0% from 6.7% after an 8.5% first half and Georgia to 6.3% from 5.5%, cut Tajikistan to 7.0% from 7.3% and Azerbaijan to 1.6% from 2.0%, and left Kazakhstan at 4.8%, Kyrgyzstan at 8.9%, Turkmenistan at 6.3%, Armenia at 5.0% and Mongolia at 5.7%. Its subregion, the Caucasus and Central and West Asia, slips to 3.7% for 2026 and 4.1% for 2027, a tenth of a point down on July on both years.
Georgia and China discuss a joint transport working group with Anaklia as the cornerstone and $7 billion of Georgian infrastructure money to 2032
Economy minister Mariam Kvrivishvili met China’s transport minister Liu Wei to discuss a joint working group across rail, sea, road and civil aviation, with the Anaklia deep-sea port placed “as a cornerstone infrastructure project for the Middle Corridor”, the ministry said in an account bm.ge carried on Wednesday at 13:15. Kvrivishvili put about $7 billion on Georgia’s infrastructure through 2032, and the ministry names the targets: to double the capacity of the maritime and rail networks and to triple airport throughput. The sides discussed direct routes from Tbilisi to Beijing and Guangzhou and cited the initiative adopted at the Global Sustainable Transport Forum in Beijing to raise the capacity, reliability and competitiveness of the Trans-Caspian route.