In the past several months the world has been rocked by profound economic and social turbulence. The COVID-19 epidemic has forced many countries around the world into widespread emergency lockdowns. Economic activity plunged dramatically in February-March 2020, with rapid indicators showing strong contractions in retail, restaurant business, and passenger transport.

On Thursday, March 21, ISET hosted the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), Mr. Koba Gvenetadze, who delivered a profoundly informative lecture to the ISET Community. Mr. Gvenetadze covered important aspects of long-term development challenges facing the Georgian economy based on the accumulated experience of past development in the country.

Beginning in July 2017, if an entrepreneur offers and/or advertises property and/or service for sale in the territory of Georgia, the price of the property/service shall be expressed solely in GEL. According to the bill, failure to abide by the new law when denominating the price will lead to a warning, while a repeated offense will lead to a penalty of 1000 GEL. Each subsequent offense will be subject to a penalty of 5000 GEL.

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.

Furthermore, high dollarization makes depreciation a dangerous process for the financial sector, as many people with loans or debts in US dollars are unable to pay. In addition, high and persistent dollarization constrains the effectiveness of the monetary policy, as the transmission of the monetary policy to the market interest rates and real variables are rather limited.