NBG: Volume of Money Transfers in June Decreased by 20.8%

On July 15, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) released a report which shows that in June 2015 the volume of money transfers from abroad decreased by 20.8% compared to June 2014.

According to the report, the volume of money transfers from abroad constituted 100.4 million USD, which is 26.3 million USD less than the amount in June last year.

91.4 % of the total money transfers from abroad come from twelve donor countries with the volume of transfers from of those countries each exceeding 1 million USD in June 2015.

In June 2014, the share of these twelve countries constituted 93.6% of the total volume of money transfers.

The report shows that 31.3% of total money transfers from the twelve largest donors come from the top five EU countries: Greece, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (UK). 68.7% is made of transfers from other seven countries: Russia, USA, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.

In June 2015,the five largest donors with the volume of transfers to Georgia were: Russia (41.5 %), Greece (13.7), Italy (8.6%), United States (8.5%) and Turkey (6.7%).

It is noteworthy that Greece is Georgia’s second largest source of remittance. Georgians expected a decrease in money transfers from Athens due to its economic hardship and the latest bailout negotiations with the EU.

In fact, the NBG report shows that the biggest remittance reduction in June came from Russia, where money transfers decreased by 9.4 %, compared to 0.8% from Greece.

In comparison, remittance increased from the United States by 3.2%, from Turkey by 2.1%.

From Georgia, in June 2015, 14.3 million USD (32.5 million GEL) was transferred as compared to million USD (25.0 million GEL) in June 2014.

Nino Japarashvili