Economic experts search for ways to stabilise the Lari

Economic decision makers are coming together with Georgia’s Finance Ministry to strategise ways to stop the national currency from further depreciating against the US Dollar.

Today Georgia’s Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Representative in Georgia Azim Sadikov, National Bank of Georgia vice president Archil Mestvirishvili and business ombudsman Giorgi Gakharia met each other to discuss all the factors that affect the rate of the Lari.

As of today 1 USD equalled 2.3024 GEL, according to a new exchange rate set by NBG. This new rate showed the Lari had slightly gained value against the greenback. The previous exchange rate was 2.3058 GEL.

Similarly, the Lari has also gained value against the Euro. From today 1 EUR will cost 2.5174 GEL, while the previous rate was 2.5191 GEL.

At today’s meeting the economic decision makers agreed to improve the state budget’s existing parameters on the exchange rate.

Georgia’s Finance Ministry announced the state budget influence on the 2015 currency flows were positive. In particular, as of today the foreign currency inflow was $81 million USD in excess of the outflow of the state budget. This indicated the fiscal sector would not realise the pressure on the national currency until the end of the year, the Ministry claimed.

Another important fact to note was the Finance Ministry decreased the budget deficit forecast rate by three percent and will not increase this until 2016.

At the meeting the sides agreed to hold similar meetings frequently in the future so parties could exchange information about the changing state of the fiscal sector. At the same time commercial banks will be able to gain information about the main parameters of the 2016 year’s budget.