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. The main topic of the seminar was a general overview of macroeconomic considerations in Georgia, future perspectives, and coordination between fiscal and monetary policies. The discussion about the recent hike in excise taxes, the “larization” program, and de-dollarization measures, has now been enlivened inside the ISET community.

The openness of the President of NBG to the opinions and arguments raised by the audience made the event extremely productive, interactive, and interesting for all parties involved. Economic growth in Georgia and its main trading partners, the role of education in economic growth, the balance of payments, currency fluctuations, inflation dynamics, the roots of dollarization, best practices of successful de-dollarization, monetary policies, and the primary objectives of the NBG is not even a full list of the topics discussed by Mr. Gvenetadze. ISET would like to thank Mr. Gvenetadze for finding time in his extremely busy schedule and providing a very interesting presentation and Q&A session to the ISET audience during challenging times for the NBG.