BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 25
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Georgia’s economy is expected to fall by 4 percent in 2020, and budget revenues will decrease by 1.8 billion lari ($567.5 million), Georgian Prime Minister Georgi Gakharia said introducing the government’s anti-crisis plan, Trend reports with reference to the Georgian media.
According to Gakharia, the government managed to save 300 million lari ($94.5 million) by cutting costs. However, the government still needs significant financial resources for social assistance, business support, and to cover the needs of the healthcare system to manage COVID-19.
“We are short of 3.9 billion lari (more than $1.2 billion) to balance the state budget,” the prime minister said.
The Georgian government has asked for help from its strategic partners, the United States and the European Union, as well as leading financial institutions. Gakharia emphasized that in an unprecedentedly short period they managed to agree on specific packages of direct financial assistance.
“We were and are the only country during the crisis to agree on the parameters of the new program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” he said.
According to Gakharia, Georgia’s international partners are ready to allocate another $1.5 billion to support business.
“If Georgian economy, the private sector and the government require additional liquidity, we have access to resources of 3 billion lari,” he said.
According to him, this assistance will come from the United States, EU, IMF, as well as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank, European Development Bank, German State Development Bank and the French Development Agency. The nature of this assistance is different: emergency financial assistance or assistance in the longer term, soft loans or borrowings.
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