Georgia’s central bank purchases $15 mln at foreign exchange auction

The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) has purchased $15 million at foreign exchange auction to control the national currency’s changing value against the US dollar.

The weighted average exchange rate was 2.6632 GEL for every 1 USD.

Today 1 USD equaled 2.6644 GEL, while 1 EUR cost 3.0449. From tomorrow, 1 EUR will cost 3.0363 GEL.

In the first 16 days of 2019 the NBG purchased $40 million at foreign exchange auction, while in 2018 the NBG purchased $197 million in total.

Currency reserves reached a historic high since the independence of Georgia in December of 2018 when the currency reserves increased by $201 million to $3,289,847,600. Despite this record currency reserves remain at the same level as in 2013.

The biggest drop in currency reserves occurred in 2014-2015 when the NBG started to sell reserves to mitigate the currency crisis in Georgia.