In February 2025, Georgia's official international reserve assets decreased by USD 202 million, amounting to USD 4.23 billion. According to Natia Turnava, the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, the main factor behind this decrease was the operations of the Georgian government, which were related to serving the state debt. In addition, Natia Turnava said that the National Bank did not sell USD on the foreign exchange market in January or February.
Natia Turnava states that due to the recent strengthening of the lari, the National Bank plans to replenish foreign exchange reserves, although she cannot comment in advance on the volume of planned operations.
"The volume of reserves is affected not only by the operations of the National Bank, but also by foreign debt servicing, and this is reflected in the statistics of reserves, when foreign debts are being repaid in a planned manner. As for interventions, we have not carried out any interventions - we have neither bought nor sold money on the foreign exchange market.
The period that allows us to replenish reserves and buy currency on the market begins from March. This will be published next month, and now it is not appropriate to say what we are currently doing on the foreign exchange market. In general, I will say that there are strong foreign exchange inflows into the country. You can see that the lari has strengthened, and February inflation is below the target of 3% and is 2.4%, therefore, everything indicates that we will be able to start replenishing reserves," - said Natia Turnava.
In annual terms, Georgia's international reserve assets have decreased by USD 512 million, or 11%.
