At USD 546 million, the amount of money transferred from abroad to Georgia in 2006 increased by 35.5%, up from USD 403 million last year, the Georgian National Bank said.

Most of the funds – 66.8% - were transferred to Georgia from Russia – a total of USD 365 million.

The remaining breakdown of funds transferred from abroad to Georgia is as follows: USD 59 million from the United States; USD 16 million from Greece; USD 14 million from Turkey; USD 11 million from Spain and Ukraine each.

Last year, politicians and lawmakers in Russia were talking about suspending money transfers from Russian in Georgia as part of the economic blockade, but officials in Tbilisi downplayed these threats as “almost impossible to materialize in practice.”

The amount of money transferred from Georgia to foreign countries also increased in 2006, to USD 132 million from USD 87.7 million in 2005, according to the Georgian National Bank.

Most of the funds from Georgia were transferred to Russia – USD 77 million; USD 8.4 million was transferred to Ukraine and USD 6.4 million to the United States.