BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 3
By Maryana Akhmedova – Trend:
Georgian economists have assessed various issues that have a significant impact on the economy of Georgia, such as remittances, foreign direct investments (FDIs) inflow, monetary policy, and inflation, Trend reports, citing the statistical data from Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMC), based on the survey conducted among Georgian economists.
Thus, the experts believe, that the relevant reason for the high increase in remittances over the first 9 months of 2021 is that people had changed their pre-COVID-19 pandemic habits and started to use online platforms for sending remittances more often.
The survey also concluded that large FDIs inflow to Georgia over the reporting period of 2021 was affected by the political instability in the country.
According to the research, 60 percent of economists agree with the decision of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) to leave the strict monetary policy rate and refinancing rate unchanged at 10 percent, which was announced on October 27, 2021.
At the same time, 80 percent of those surveyed think that the NBG's expectation that inflation will return to the target in the second quarter of 2022 is partially or entirely realistic.
Georgian economists were also asked to state their expectations about the possibility of materializing the key risk factors, which, according to the Government of Georgia, will affect the main economic and financial indicators of Georgia in 2022-2025. “Half of the respondents thought that the decrease of global consumer demand was least likely to materialize,” the survey said.
According to the survey, 40 percent of the respondents think the COVID-19 pandemic was the most probable factor, compared to other threatening factors.
“Regional risks (including a low level of economic diversification, frozen conflicts, internal political problems and instability, and political unrest in the Middle East) taken as a whole was rated as the factor most likely to materialize by 40 percent of the surveyed economists,” the research said.
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