TBC Capital published Weekly Bulletin. According to the bulletin, Georgia’s merchandise export dropped to USD 251.9mln (-22.1% YoY), while imports were down to USD 655.0mln (-13.3% YoY), compared to March 2019. As a result, the total turnover reduced to USD 906.9mln (-16.0% YoY), and the trade deficit shrank by 6.8% compared to March 2019.
COVID-19 related restrictions affects domestic as well as external demand as reflected in declining external trade figures.
Remittance inflows were down by 9.0% YoY in March 2020 as the transfers fell from Russia (-28.3% YoY), Italy (-8.7% YoY), Israel (-10.2% YoY) and reflecting falling oil prices and sharp depreciation of RUB in case of Russia and tightened social distancing measures in Italy and Israel.
On the other hand, remittances increased significantly from Germany (+26.4% YoY), Ukraine (+16.2%), and Azerbaijan (+45.4% YoY), who are also among the biggest contributors to the aggregate amount. By regions, remittances from the EU went down slightly by 2.4% YoY, while the remittances from the CIS countries and Ukraine decreased by 21.4% YoY, mostly due to the negative change in inflows from Russia.
