TBC Research published Weekly Bulleting. According to the report, Georgia’s merchandise export grew by 18.7% YoY and reached USD 390.4mln in December 2019. Imports also increased to USD 927.0mln (+12.9% YoY), thus the trade deficit in the last month worsened by 8.9% compared to December 2018. Nevertheless, on the yearly span, trade deficit shrunk YoY by 8.5% in 2019 to USD 5.28bn as the exports went up 12.4% YoY to USD 3.77bn, and imports were down by 0.8% YoY to USD 9.05bn.
Remittance inflows increased by 14.2% YoY in USD terms in December 2019. Inflows from the EU remained the main driver with 16.4% YoY increase. In addition, remittances from the CIS countries and Ukraine rose by 15.9% YoY, with highest contribution of the` Central Asian countries (+142.5% YoY) and Ukraine (+76.5% YoY). Money transfers from other countries increased by 8.8% YoY, mainly reflecting increases from Turkey (+6.7% YoY) and Israel (+12.3%).
35.6mln transactions (+34.3% YoY) with total value of GEL 3.22bn (+31.1% YoY) went through domestically issued payment cards in December 2019. 93.7% of all transactions, with 92.8% of total transaction value, took place within the country. POS terminals in trade or service outlets represented 78.5% of number of transactions in the last.
