The lari’s nominal and real effective exchange rates continue to strengthen annually. In August, the lari’s real effective exchange rate strengthened by 8.3%, the nominal effective exchange rate strengthened by 21.6% annually.
As for the monthly trend, the lari’s real effective exchange rate depreciated by 0.4% in August compared to last month while the nominal effective exchange rate strengthened by 0.7%. The strengthening of the effective exchange rate has a negative impact on the country's competitiveness but brought down imported inflation.
According to the National Bank, in August the lari’s average exchange rate against the US dollar depreciated from 2.5975 to 2.6223 (by 1.0%) compared to the previous month, against the euro it strengthened from 2.8674 to 2.8617 (by 0.2%). At the end of the month, the lari’s official exchange rate against the US dollar and the euro was set at 2.6292 and 2.8621 respectively. In August, the maximum value of the GEL/dollar exchange rate was 2.6387, the minimum was set at 2.6106.
Among trading partners, in August, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Eurozone, Russia, USA and Belarus saw higher annual inflation than in Georgia and lower than in Armenia. A downward trend is recorded in the main trade partner countries but still remains high.
