Georgian economy will grow more than 4%, says Minister
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The Georgian Government is expecting the economy to grow more than four percent in 2015, announced Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri at today's Governmental meeting.
Yesterday the Government specified the current year’s economic growth forecast not only in Georgia but in the neighbouring countries and declared all of them will have stagnation in their economies.
"Zero percent growth is fixed in the economies of Armenia and Moldova. The Russian economy will collapse this year as well. Belarus will experience zero percent economic growth, while the Azerbaijani economy will grow by 1.5 percent. As for Georgia, our economy will grow by more than four percent,” Khaduri said.
In 2014 officials forecast the Georgian economy would experience five percent growth. The forecast was changed due to the sharp depreciation of the Georgian national currency the GEL, which is still continuing to tumble after a slight improvement.
Currently the official rate is 1.9977 GEL to 1 USD. Yesterday the rate was 1.9933 GEL respectively.
The depreciation of the GEL has forced the National Bank of Georgia to tighten the country's monetary policy to control the economy. However, Minister Khaduri said the Lari has strengthened already and there was now no need for the bank to get involved in this process.
He added the Lari was one of the most stable floating exchanges in the region.
Georgia's economy grew 4.7 percent in 2014 - a pleasing result but slightly less than the five percent growth the Government had hoped for.
The National Bank of Georgia is preparing tighten the country's monetary policy in a bid to control the economy in light of the decreasing value of the national currency.
About 540 million GEL in taxes was expected to be collected in January however the actual tax revenue reached 570.5 million GEL, according to the Budget Performance Report submitted by Georgia’s Finance Minister to the Prime Minister.
Georgia's economic growth is expected to hit five percent in 2015, Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri says however the Government has not looked at the economic growth forecast yet.