BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 24
By Tamilla Mammadova - Trend:
The revised budget of Georgia for 2020 is amended with three updated scenarios for macroeconomic development of the country - the basic, pessimistic and optimistic, Trend reports referring to Ministry of Finance of Georgia.
According to the optimistic scenario, economic growth in annual terms will be 2.7 percent.
The Ministry of Finance made this calculation based on the preliminary data reflecting economic growth in April 2020 by 16.6 percent, and the average growth for the first four months of 2020 was -3.6 percent.
“Under the optimistic scenario, tax revenues to GDP in 2020 will be 1.1 percentage points higher and this value will reach 22 percent. Thus, tax revenues under the optimistic scenario will be by 776 million lari [$254.9 million] more than the basic scenario stipulates,” the ministry noted.
In accordance with the baseline scenario, due to border restrictions, tourism revenues in 2020 will decrease by 50 percent compared to last year. According to government estimates, the decrease in this sphere will amount to $1.65 billion.
Under the pessimistic scenario, tourism revenues in 2020 will decline by 80 percent.
The pessimistic scenario of the government is based on the assumption that the epidemiological situation will remain acute and continuation of the strict regime will be required.
In the case of a pessimistic scenario, against the background of a reduced nominal GDP, tax revenues will also drop: they will decrease by 742 million lari ($243.7 million) compared to the base scenario and by 1.65 million lari ($542,129) compared to 2019.
In this case, the fiscal deficit will increase from 8.3 percent of GDP to 10.8 percent, and the country’s external debt will reach 59.7 percent of GDP.
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