ISET: Khachapuri Index Increases by 9.6 Percent in 2015

The International School of Economics (ISET) has published its Khachapuri Index for November.

Khachapuri is a traditional Georgian dish of cheese-filled bread. The price of making an Imeretian Khachapuri with cheese, butter, flour, yeast, eggs, and milk and energy imput (gas and electricity), is used as a measure of inflation in different Georgian cities by the Khachapuri Index (Kh Index), developed by the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University.

In November, the average cost of Imeretian khachapuri increased to 3.66 GEL, higher than the previous month by 1.4% and the annual rate by 9.6%.

Considering that the price includes those food prices which are the subject of seasonal fluctuation, the upward trend of the Khachapuri Index is sharper than the official consumer price index released by the National Statistics Office of Georgia, which showed an increase of 0.3% in a month and by 6.3% in a year.

In November, the prices of all the ingredients for cooking khachapuri, except flour, had increased: cheese by 14.7%; milk by 10.1%, butter by 5.3%, eggs by 0.9% and yeast by 19.1%.

Flour prices had fallen by 0.7% due to the fall of wheat prices worldwide.

In advance of the holidays, ISET predicts more growth for the Khachapuri Index in December.

Ana Akhalaia