Baku, Azerbaijan, August 23
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Georgia's exports went up by 17.5 percent in July 2019 compared to July 2018 when expressed in USD, Trend reports citing TBC Research.
In euro and lari growth stood at 22.1 percent and 37.8 percent, respectively.
Stronger exports primarily reflect the increase of re-exports of some major categories such as copper ores (+58.3 percent year-on-year) and cars (+43.5 percent). One-off exports of aircrafts also contributed to the growth.
Exports of goods with relatively higher share of domestic value added like mineral waters (+38.1 percent) and textile (+76.5 percent) increased strongly, while other traditional products like ferroalloys (-17.1 percent), fertilizers (-37.7 percent), spirits (-18.7 percent) were down over the same period. While the leading export commodity, hazelnuts, continues to decline (-67.3 percent), very promising expectations on harvest and prices are expected to support the exports in the coming months.
In terms of regions, the increase of the exports to the CIS and Ukraine excluding Russia contributed most to the growth (+26.6 percent). At the same time, the increase of exports to the EU was the highest (+53.5 percent). The exports to Russia increased by 16.8 percent, while the exports to Turkey continued to decline (-17.3 percent) in July 2019.
Export prices went up by 16 percent year-on-year as the lari exchange rate depreciated against major trading partner currencies. Even when adjusted for prices, exports growth was solid at around 19 percent, supporting the GDP growth considerably despite the high contribution of the re-exported items, the report said.