Devaluation of National Currency: Evaluations and Predictions

The opposers of the ruling party from political and business sectors are offering their view on GEL's devaluation. With experts’ dramatic predictions at hand - saying that, the price of one dollar could possibly raise to three and a half Lari - some businessmen are suggesting that the President of National Bank should resign and Government’s economic team be questioned.

The Chairman of Georgian Distributors Business Association, Iva Chkonia, has commented on the subject, “They should come out and explain in detail what is happening in the country. If the country’s economic team is the one to blame here, the Head of the National Bank should have enough guts to publicly admit that they are not fulfilling their responsibility and are working inadequately. Blaming some political events for the economic detour of our country, is, I think an absurd. Current situation is very bad for the business and businessmen who create the economic atmosphere for our state. They will have an extraordinarily hard time continuing to operate with the value of today’s currency. At least, if there is no existing action plan, the President of National Bank must resign instantly,” said Chkonia.  

 Doctor in the Economic Sciences and Vice President of the Center of International Researches and Forecasting, Nika Shengelia deems that the economic team should be renewed and the National Bank should be reformed.

Zurab Japaridze from the Girchi Political Party has published a statement on his Facebook page, evaluating the reasons behind Lari’s devaluation. In a massive post published on Wednesday, Japaridze names the Government’s chosen political course, their way of dealing with social problems and the mentality they have been giving stimulus to as the long term reasons of depreciation of national currency.

 Zurab Chiaberashvili, one of the leaders of the “European Georgia” party has commented on the subject on Wednesday, saying that “The devaluation of GEL depicts the difficult economic situation, which has been worsened due to unadvised economic policy of the “Georgian Dream” party.” According to Chiaberashvili, even if the ruling party takes the right economic steps, reaching the short-term stability of GEL is impossible as people have little to no confidence left in the “Georgian Dream.” “The medium term stability of Gel is possible after the current government is replaced through election, after so-called political reloading,“ noted Chiaberashvili. 

By Nini Dakhundaridze