GeoStat: Record Exports with Record Trade Deficit (January – March 2018)

For a monthly average Georgian salary, it is nearly impossible to stack the fridge with imported goods alone. Prices surge, inflation continues, and wage growth lags behind. Economists from the EU and the IMF identified the problem years ago and began to work with the Georgian government to implement essential reforms for the recovery of the national economy.

Despite the positive messages of new reforms hitting the newsstand every day, Georgia persists to struggle with their trade balance. For more than 5 years, the trade deficit between January to March has been more than 1 billion US Dollars, worsening substantially for the first time this year to reach a deficit of $1.343,1.

The graph shows the trade balance between imports and exports in Georgia for the period of January to March for the years 2013 to 2018. The value of imports reached a record-high, with goods worth $2,083.4 million being imported to Georgia, whereas goods worth just $740.3 million exported during the same period, amounting to a trade deficit of $1,343.1 million.

Imports, represented by the blue column, increased between 2013 and 2014 but experienced a sudden decrease from 2014 to 2015 before plummeting to a 5-year low in 2016 with imports worth only $1,488.5 million. Compared to 2016, the numbers recovered in 2017 sharply increasing to $1,713.4 million, before they rocketed this year to pass the $2,000 million mark by 83.4 million.

Compared to import figures, exports have changed proportionally in a similar fashion, resulting in a general trade deficit ranging from 1,000 million to 1,300 million US dollars. The dramatic surge in imports in 2018 caused the trade deficit to dip to 1,343.1 for the first time in 2018. 

By Benjamin Music

Photo: GeoStat