Recent developments have brought dissonance to the Georgian economy, however the macroeconomic factors are quite healthy, said Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze while commenting on the devaluation of the Georgian national currency, the lari, today. 

Bakhtadze was referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ban on flights to Georgia this summer. Bakhtadze said that Georgia will deal with the short-term and temporary fluctuations of the lari.

"All of this will be pacified. The country is in [the process of] stable development. At the same time, each fundamental factor in our economy, which determines the sustainability of the economy, is at quite a good level… we have to work more actively to solve the problems that we face in the short-term period and to implement our government programme in a more effective way”, said Bakhtadze.

Bakhtadze also promised to protect the economic interest of each citizen who might be affected by the drop in tourists from Russia.

"In such situations the most important recommendations come from the private sector, so from people who are really concerned and also have specific ideas on how to solve this problem. We have daily active communication with the private sector in order to agree on the actions that will help us avoid bad scenarios”, said Bakhtadze.

The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) also announced yesterday that the anticipated drop in tourists from Russia “is reflected on the currency market”.

The lari, has depreciated in value against the US dollar and the euro in recent days by about 5 tetri, with 1 USD costing 2.8791 GEL (2.8470 as of yesterday), while 1 EUR costs 3.2758 GEL (3.2356 as of yesterday) today.

source: agenda.ge