Economy Minister: 2022 growth should be higher than forecast by financial institutions

Economic growth of Georgia in 2022 should be higher than forecasts released by financial institutions, Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili said on Friday at a plenary session of the Georgian Parliament.

Davitashvili briefed MPs on current trends in the country's economy, the Government's visions and the main directions of the economic policy.

We expect that the planned economic growth will be achieved. The Georgian Government has repeatedly shown that we have a successful experience in dealing with shocks. We went through a very difficult period of pandemic; however we had one of the highest economic growths in the [South Caucasus] region,” the Minister said.

Davitashvili stressed in 2021 the Georgian economy had grown by more than 10 percent, reaching a “double-digit” growth, while the figure in the first quarter of 2022 reached 14.4 percent.

He also noted that the Government had assessed the potential impact of the war in Ukraine “from the very beginning” of the war.

Assuming different shocks, we revised our economic growth forecast and assumed that it could have been reduced by three percentage points, i.e. instead of the projected six percent, the growth could have been set at three or 3.5 percent. This forecast was shared by our international partners, with international financial institutions fully agreeing with our estimates,” Davitashvili noted.

The Minister explained this was not a “satisfactory scenario” and the Government was “mobilised” to compensate for the potential loss in growth figures and implement targeted policies to support the economy.