Economic Press Monitor

IN THIS ISSUE:

Sakstat reported that average real economic growth for the first 7 months of the year made up 2.7%.

If investments do not increase and economic is not revived within the rest 5 months, it will be hard to achieve forecasted GDP growth of 3.5%, the newspaper states.

Fuel has increased in price by 5 tetri in non-branded filling stations, while price growth in large chains of filling stations is not observed yet, the newspaper reports.

Union of Oil-Products Importers explains that there is small reserves in the country, which is traditional problem for small stations.

While responding to Tabula’s question, Vice Premier and Economy Minister Dimitri Kumsishvili admits that during the past years, the government did not pay due attention to the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI), which caused worsening of the country’s position in this index, the magazine reports.

In 2016, Georgia has occupied the 130^th place in LPI, moving back by 14 positions in comparison with 2014.

Paata Bairakhtari, analyst at Young Financiers and Businessmen Association, points that “national currency has strengthened for the last month by more than 3% and cost of one dollar is 2.28 lari now”.

One of key factors that facilitated lari stabilization is money remittances from abroad, at that tourism sector played important role in terms of foreign currency influx also, Bairakhtari indicates.