Frontier technologies as the main driver of the post-COVID economy
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Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Press
Abstract
Needless to say, that today COVID-19 has become a turning point in almost in all spheres of human
activity. At the same time, he “warned” our society that the era of “relaxation” has passed and if
it wants stability, it must be constantly ready for new various kind of crisis. And the latter, most likely,
implies less familiar scenarios. Many economists agreed, that the problems we will face in the next
decade will simply be more extreme versions of those that we already confront today.
In order for the “different” world to become better than the former one, many problems must
be fundamentally discussed and evaluated, and therefore immediately resolved. One of these problems,
which is critical for our economy, is the implementation, adaptation and use of frontier technologies.
Indeed, in 2015, when the world signed up to the most ambitious agenda ever agreed – the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development – frontier technologies was heralded as a key means of implementation
for their achievement.
In the paper, we analyzed the index of readiness for frontier technologies published by the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which aims to study the level of diffusion of frontier technologies in the world and show countries that without moving in this direction, it
is impossible to achieve sustainable development goals, or overcome the post-Covid challenges. We
focused on comparing the data of Georgia with the similar data of the Eastern Partnership countries,
on the one hand, and with the Baltic countries and Poland, on the other hand.
Data analysis revealed that the level of implementation, adapting and use of frontier technologies
in the Eastern Partnership countries, including Georgia, does not stand up to criticism, cannot influence
the development of these countries, and it is likely that the current level and development
trends of these economies in largely illusory. By delaying the solution of the mentioned problem, the
existing backwardness is aggravated and the most important resource – human capital – is lost and
disappears. The fact that this trend has been irreversible for more than three decades (since the 90s
of the last century) shows that the problem is catastrophically critical and it will take decades to achieve
desirable results.
Thus, it is very important to timely and multifaceted policy focus, along with other priority measures
of the post-Covid period, on improving the overall index of readiness for frontier technologies
of the national economy and its components. And for this, it is necessary to develop ambitious reconstruction
plans and implement them in a number of directions in order to overcome the challenges
of the post-Covid period.
Description
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Keywords
Citation
Conference Proceedings: "The World Economy in the Post-Pandemic Period: Implications and Challenges", Tbilisi, 2023, pp. 32-40