PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said he expects the Georgian national currency, lari (GEL), to appreciate further against U.S. dollar.
“There really are trends in economy, which give us reason to say with confidence that this trend of [GEL strengthening] will continue, which I welcome,” he told journalists on May 20.
The central bank, he said, is purchasing dollars, which “probably was a reasonable decision” to prevent sharp currency “jumps”.
Georgia’s central bank intervened in the foreign exchange market on the purchasing side for the fourth consecutive day on May 20, buying USD 40 million.
Total of USD 100 million was bought in those four interventions this week on top of USD 95 million bought in previous seven interventions since mid-March.
GEL is now at about 2.146 per U.S. dollar, 10.8% stronger than in the beginning of the year and 7.6% stronger compared to a year earlier.
Georgia’s exports declined 11.7% year-on-year in the first four months of 2016 to USD 608 million, according to the state statistics office. Imports were down by 12% y/y in January-April to slightly over USD 2 billion (if excluding one-off import of donated medicines).
Although money transfers into Georgia posted annual growth in April, overall amount of remittances in the first four months of 2016 were down by 2.5% y/y to USD 332 million.
International arrivals increased 15.4% y/y in the first four months this year to 1.59 million; among them, according to the Interior Ministry data, 578,100 were tourists, a 17% y/y increase.
