In the last two weeks, the lari depreciated, once again, against the US dollar. Georgian currency lost about eight tetri against its American counterpart, causing quite a stir in the media, among political groups and economic experts. While government authorities claimed that the recent developments are short-term fluctuations driven by negative expectations, Turkish lira depreciation, dollar’s global strengthening, and are therefore not connected to the fundamentals of the Georgian economy, the members of the opposition were quick to blame incompetent fiscal and monetary policy.

On Wednesday, January 23, ISET hosted the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), Mr. Koba Gvenetadze. Mr. Gvenetadze delivered a profoundly informative lecture about the importance of monetary policies for economic well-being, discussing issues such as the importance of the price stability objective, inflation targeting frameworks (specifically why it is so crucial to avoid both deflation and high inflation), and the efficiency of monetary policy transmission mechanisms under a flexible exchange rate.

Recently, Geostat released the preliminary estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter (April-June) of 2018, which now stands at 6.0%. This is only 0.1 percentage points above the recent ISET-PI forecast. As a result, real GDP growth for the first seven months of 2018 reached 5.5%.

The above quote seems to fit the state of affairs in the European Union fairly well, as the EU’s crisis is continuing, getting deeper, and engulfing more actors than when it started. To name a few well-known events and stats: Greece probably had the first meaningful kick-off in the chain of developments when it faced threats to stability in its own financial system at the end of 2009. At that time, an unreported estimated deficit jumped from 7% of GDP to the first 13%, and then stabilized at 15% as the "new normal."

Unofficial (partial) dollarization describes a situation when a foreign currency is used alongside the domestic currency for transactions purposes and as a store value. High partial dollarization is not good for a country, as it ties the hands of its Central Bank when it wants to use monetary policy. In a highly dollarized economy, national currency depreciation can even lead to financial instability.