Georgian economy: optimism and pessimism

Georgia as a part of the world economy has suffered from the global financial crisis. It is hard to believe that in the near future things will get better and there will be no problems. However there are different approaches to this issue.

Georgian officials involved in economics are optimistic and are sticking to the targets they previously declared, principally that the Georgian economy will contract by only 1.5% this year. “There are risks, but we hope to maintain this figure,” says Deputy Minister of Finance Papuna Petriashvili. However there is a certain difference of opinion between state bodies themselves. The National Bank suggests that GDP decrease will be more than 4%.

Independent economic analysts think all the figures suggested by official bodies are far removed from the real ones. Shota Gvenetadze thinks that the situation has deteriorated further since the Department of Statistics published the data for the first quarter. He has told Rezonansi that the Government is not taking adequate steps to improve the situation and sometimes makes it worse.