BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 30. The National
Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat) hosted a mission from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) from April 14 to 24 aimed at
improving and expanding the country’s Residential Property Price
Index (RPPI), Trend
reports via Geostat.
According to the information, the mission focused on enhancing
one of the key indicators of price statistics, widely used for
macroeconomic analysis and financial stability assessments by the
National Bank of Georgia, private sector stakeholders, and research
institutions.
Particular attention was given to expanding the index’s
coverage. Discussions included the incorporation of the secondary
residential property market, with pilot indices already calculated
and further steps outlined. These steps involve adding a rental
component and assessing the feasibility of extending the index
beyond Tbilisi.
Currently, the RPPI covers only newly built residential
properties in the capital city. The index was first introduced in
2021 with IMF support.
The RPPI is based on modern data collection methods, including
web scraping, which enables automated extraction of data from
online sources, significantly improving both the volume and
accuracy of information compared to traditional approaches.
During the mission, IMF experts also assisted in upgrading data
processing and analysis procedures, enhancing software tools, and
sharing expertise with Geostat staff.
