GEL Depreciates Further

Georgian currency lari (GEL) lost 1.3% of its value, falling to 2.364 per U.S. dollar on Monday, the biggest single-day drop since early March, 2015, according to central bank’s official exchange rate set for Tuesday.

GEL is now 37% weaker against U.S. dollar compared to last year’s August and 25.6% weaker than in the beginning of this year.

Exchange kiosks in Tbilisi were selling dollar for about GEL 2.4 as of Monday evening, up from 2.34-2.35.

GEL started depreciation from early November, reaching 2.3637 per U.S. dollar by mid-May; it gained in following weeks, stabilizing at around 2.24-2.26 per dollar till late July, but GEL again started weakening since early August.

(CORRECTED: the initial text is corrected in the third paragraph to show ‘GEL 2.4’ instead of ‘GEL 3.4’)