Nodar Khaduri:

Minister of Finance of Georgia

“According to the World Bank, Georgia has the highest economic growth. If we have a 6% economic growth, the country holding the second position in our category - Armenia, has a 3.2% growth.”

Guram LOBZHANIDZE FactCheck

According to the Minister of Fi­nance of Geor­gia, Nodar

Khaduri, Georgia is a leader in its category by its economic growth rates based upon the information of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

According to the data of the World Bank, the expected eco­nomic growth rate of Georgia equals 5%. In addition, ac­cording to the official forecast of the Government of Geor­gia, a 5% economic growth is expected in 2014. Hence, the part of Mr Khaduri’s state­ment saying that the expected economic growth of Georgia in 2014 is 696 based upon the information of the World Bank is not entirely accurate.

Based upon the data of the International Monetary Fund, Georgia is still grouped with the Commonwealth of Inde­pendent States members. The group contains the former Soviet republics with the ex­ception of the Baltic States. According to the data of the expected GDP growth of these countries, Georgia holds the fourth position out of the 12 countries. The real ex­pected GDP growth of Geor­gia is 5.03%. Turkmenistan (10.12%), Tajikistan (6%) and Uzbekistan (7%) occupy the first three positions. Based upon the data of the Inter­national Monetary Fund, the expected economic growth of Armenia is 3.18%.

Taking into account that Georgia is not a member of the Commonwealth of Inde­pendent States and has cho­sen the path of European in­tegration, it would be sensible to assume that in his state­ment, the Minister of Finance of Georgia talked about the developing countries of East­ern Europe. According to the International Monetary Fund, none of the countries in the group of the developing coun­tries of Eastern Europe has an expected growth of more than 3.4% which means that the growth rate of Georgia is in­deed the highest in the group. In addition, the expected growth rate of the Georgian economy in 2015 (5%) is also higher than those rates of the developing states of Europe.

According to the classifi­cation of the World Bank, Georgia falls in the category of Eastern European and Central Asian countries. The aforementioned category includes 20 states, most of which are former Soviet Union or former Yugoslavia member states.

Table 3: Expected Eco­nomic Growth Rates of East­ern European and Central Asian States