Koba Gvenetadze, Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, participated in the annual conference organized by Columbia University, Challenges and Responses to Inflation and Market Fallouts from Emerging Market Economies.

The roundtable discussion event traditionally follows the annual Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, focusing on discussions around key topics. Central Bank governors, finance ministers, former bankers, academics and financial sector leaders from around the world discuss the response actions to economic challenges.

In his speech, the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia focused on high inflation as the global challenge of the economy, underscoring the importance of the policy pursued by the monetary authorities:

"Inflation has been rising globally even before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. Supply-demand mismatches, increasing commodity (fuel and food) prices have been pushing inflation up since early 2021. Indeed, central banks now need vigilance, since the cost of prolonged high inflation would be substantial, and monetary authorities would have to have stronger reaction. Some central banks in EMs, including the National Bank of Georgia, had already tightened monetary policy pre-emptively at the onset of policy normalization cycle in AEs and as a response to emerging inflation expectations. But recent inflation risks force central banks in EMs to further accelerate policy tightening to contain expectations which are swiftly rising due to lingering inflation. That’s why we have tightened our policy rate even further at our latest monetary policy committee meeting," said Koba Gvenetadze.

The Governor of the National Bank of Georgia participated in a series of high-level meetings as part of the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on April 19-24. These included a meeting of Central Bank governors and finance ministers of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and a meeting of Central Bank governors of the Middle East and Central Asia.