U.S. Intelligence report highlights Georgia’s slow economy

The United States Intelligence Community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment highlights the economic slowdown as Georgia’s "greatest immediate concern”.

The 27-page Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community report contained one paragraph about Georgia in the Caucasus and Central Asia section, as it had for the past several years.

"The economy, which has slowed since the Georgian Dream Coalition was elected in October 2012, will be an area of greatest immediate concern,” the report read.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper presented the report and its findings to US Senate Intelligence Committee on Intelligence on January 29.

"Georgia’s new political leaders have inherited pressing domestic and foreign policy problems amid high public expectations for progress,” the report said.

Clapper mentioned the prosecution of former officials in Georgia was a task the current Government had to carefully balance.

"The new government will also continue to balance a series of high-profile legal cases against former government officials for past abuses. The cases, while popular inside Georgia, have generated concerns of political retribution abroad and risk polarizing Georgian politics,” the report read.

Near the end of the statement, Russia-Georgia relations were highlighted and said progress had been made in this area.

"Tensions with Russia have eased over the past year, decreasing the risk of renewed conflict. Progress nonetheless remains unlikely on the core disputes between Tbilisi and Moscow,” it said.

A previous report released in March 2013 focused on Russia-Georgia relations and the country’s ex-Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s interest in normalizing relations with Russia.