Money transfers in Georgia increase in August

Georgia saw increased money transfers by 7.8% last month compared to the same period of 2018.

In August 2019, the volume of money transfers from abroad constituted $146.4 million, which is $10.7 million more compared to the same period last year.

The official information was released by the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), which said that 94% of the total money transfers from abroad came from 18 largest donor countries, with the volume of transfers from these countries each exceeding $1 million in August 2019.

In the same period, more than one-third of money transfers were from the European Union countries - $55.89 million (38.17%) and from the other countries $90.53 million (61.83%) was transferred to Georgia.

The Russian Federation leads the list of the countries with the largest money transfers with $35.46 million (24.22%). It is followed by Italy – $20.57 million (14.05%) and the USA – $15.12 million (10.33%). $14.73 million (10.06%) was transferred to Georgia from Greece in August, while $14.02 million (9.57%) came from Israel and $7.92 million (5.41%) from neighboring Turkey.

The list of other countries looks as follows:
- Spain – $4.23 million (2.89%)
- Germany – $4.22 million (2.88%)
- Ukraine – $3.83 million (2.61%)
- Poland – $3.13 million (2.14%)
- France – $2.56 million (1.75%)
- Kazakhstan – $2.56 million (1.75%)
- Kyrgyzstan – $2.44 million (1.67%)
- Azerbaijan – $1.88 million (1.29%)
- UK – $1.3 million (0.89%)
- Canada – $1.29 million (0.88%)
- Armenia - $1.22 million (0.84%)
- Cyprus – $1.22 million (0.83%)

As for the money transfers from Georgia, $19 million was transferred to foreign countries in August 2019, which is 0.5% more than it was in August 2018 ($18.9 million).

If we have a look at the statistics according to the months this year, the largest amount of money transfers to Georgia were made in July, 2019:
- January – $115.7 million
- February – $125.5 million
- March – $138.4 million
- April – $137.1 million
- May – $145.8 million
- June – $143.6 million
- July – $154.5 million
- August - $146.4 million

To note, during the last three years, Russia has been leading the other countries in terms of the money transfers.

In August 2017, $40.2 million was transferred from Russia while in the same month of the previous year it amounted to $41.5 million. As for the other months of this year, the largest amount of money was transferred from Russia in June, which was $39 million.

Statistics also show that usually money transfers from Russia are the highest in December. In December 2017, money transfers from Russia amounted to $45.3 million while last December it was $43.8 million.