Former Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili responds to the events related to the visit of Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner to Tbilisi.

“On Pozner’s visit. For me, as a citizen of Georgia, the territorial integrity of the country and the right to make a sovereign decision is an inviolable value. Any opinion or statement propagating the opposite is unacceptable to all Georgian patriots. It is also impossible to approve of a demonstrative violation of anti-pandemic rules.

Let us now look at this event with a little more pragmatism:

For non-economists, I will simplify it a lot and won’t speak about causes, because politicization will take us far - the exchange rate of the Georgian currency is mainly made up by the 4 material factors: export, foreign investments, money transfers and tourism.

The 5th - the non-material factor - that leads to refraining from full dollarization and keeping a significant amount of deposits in the national currency, is people’s expectations and the level of general optimism.

The government has the only short-term tool to compensate at least part of the significant decline in foreign investment - tourism, as it is virtually impossible to influence exports in the short term, and the government has no leverage over the amount of money transfers. Getting investments through privatization is also the most difficult task in the current situation. As for the fifth non-material factor - we are not doing well in terms of optimism among the population either.

There remains tourism whose return to the pre-pandemic rate is a global challenge… We have the highest proportion of tourists from Russia. These are all dry facts”, - writes Giorgi Kvirikashvili.