Central Bank Sells USD 20m to Support GEL
Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 12 Jan.'16 / 17:40

The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) sold USD 20 million at a foreign currency auction on January 12 to support the national currency lari (GEL).

GEL was trading at about 2.415-2.42 per U.S. dollar on January 12, compared to 2.419-2.425 a day earlier.

GEL has lost 28.3% of its value against U.S. dollar since last year’s January and 0.8% since the beginning of this year.

It was central bank’s first intervention this year and the second one in less than three weeks.

NBG sold total of USD 286.96 million in nine interventions last year.

IMF mission said in early December that it “strongly supports the NBG’s policy to allow the Lari to float and to limit foreign exchange interventions only to dampen excess exchange rate volatility.”

Gross international reserves stood at USD 2.52 billion as of end-December 2015, up from USD 2.479 billion a month earlier and down from USD 2.699 billion a year earlier.

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