TBILISI

Georgia projects 6 percent economic growth next year on the basis of recorded growth in the first nine months of this year as the country eased the majority of the restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic, businesses reopened and tourists tentatively started to return.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 11.3 percent year-on-year in January-September after contracting 5.0 percent in the same period last year, the National Statistics office said. In September alone, the economy expanded by 6.9 percent, compared with a 0.7 percent contraction a year ago. Growth was recorded in all sectors of the economy, except for construction.

Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to amount to 65 billion lari ($20.7 billion), while per capita GDP will exceed $5,500 by the end of next year, the country Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili said.

“Georgia will fully recover to pre-pandemic economic levels and maintain a high rate of economic growth,” he said.

Georgia’s highly tourism-reliant economy has been hit especially hard by the COVID crisis and lacks the resource-extraction or manufacturing base that has helped cushion the blow in some other ex-Soviet countries.

The country started its economic recovery in April this year when it recorded 44.8 percent year-on-year growth. Economic recovery continued to gather pace as the country eased the majority of the restrictions it had imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, businesses reopened and tourists tentatively started to return.

The country brought some restrictions back in August amid a hike in the number of infections and fatalities.

In July, Georgia revised its economic growth forecast to 7.7 percent from a previous projection of 4.3 percent in 2021 amid signs of economic recovery and in line with the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) current projection.

In October, the central bank projected economic growth at 10 percent this year as the country continued to demonstrate economic recovery and a rise in demand after months of contraction due to the restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

The IMF said in July that Georgia’s GDP was now projected to grow 7.7 percent in 2021 and 5.8 percent in 2022. In October, the IMF said that significant risks, including slow vaccination, remained to Georgia’s economic recovery.

The World Bank said in October that Georgia’s economy was projected to recover in 2021, growing by 8 percent in 2021 and 5.5 percent next year.

In August, Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook on Georgia’s long-term foreign-currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to Stable from Negative and affirmed the IDR at ‘BB’.