The Committee discussed and approved the Annual Report of the National Bank for 2021.
According to the Chair of the Committee, Irakli Kovzanadze, the Report has been submitted within the established terms. “The 377-page document reflects all the directions to be covered by the National Bank – the macro-economic environment, monetary-credit and currency policy, fiscal stability, banking and non-banking oversight, oversight of the tax systems, IT, internal audit, normative legal base, statistic data etc. all these details are described in the Report”, - he stated, naming the inflation as a key challenge and noted that the monetary sphere in 2021 was and still is an acute challenge for the economy and society.
“In 2019, we had 7% annual inflation and in 2020 – 2,4% and as you know, the Government has funded the utility fees. In 2021, inflation achieved 13,9% and decreased to 12,8% in 2022”.
The Report was introduced by the NB President, Koba Gvenetadze underlining the mandate and the key task of the Bank – provision of price stability. “The basic task of the Bank is to ensure the price stability. At that, the Bank shall ensure the stability and transparency of the fiscal system and facilitate the economic growth without prejudicing the fulfillment of its key task”.
The reporter emphasized the factors entailing the increased inflation and overviewed all the steps taken by the Bank in this direction: “sometimes, the Bank takes unpopular, painful but necessary decisions”. Speaking about fiscal stability, he stressed that the facilitation of fiscal stability is one of the primary tasks of the Bank since it is a sphere under the responsibility of the Bank and which is most sensitive to unforeseeable factors.
“The decisions made by the Bank as a result of the long discussions, estimation and analysis of the scenarios were corresponding with the situation – they were not radical and envisaged the increase of the refinancing share to control the inflation but it was measured and careful to prevent an impediment to the revival of the economy and maintain the perspective of lowering of the inflation. Today, the Bank has come to the point when one of the most painful period is over – the country has been through the gravest pandemic period but maintained the fiscal stability”, - he added and dwelt on the importance of the financial technologies: “Bank is one of the leading institutions promoting the establishment of the novelties and technologies in the financial sector serving for the provision of more innovative services to the population and development of various technological spheres”, - he stated and touched upon the protection of the consumers rights.
According to him, yet another task of the Bank is to protect the rights of the consumers: “The Bank, as a banking regulator, regulates the banking sector to protect the consumers in relations with the financial organizations”.
The reporter introduced the assessments of the international organizations all being positive: “The activity held by the National Bank has been internationally recognized in 2021 like in the preceding years”, - he stated, made additional elucidations and answered the questions. The Committee approved the Report.
