Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has confirmed its forecast of 5% GDP growth in Georgia for 2013 made in October last year, according to the Regional Economic Prospects report posted on the EBRD website, Azerbaijan's Trend news agency reported.

As for Georgia's economic growth in 2012, the new EBRD report confirmed its forecast of 6.5 %.

"Georgia's economy grew rapidly throughout most of 2012, and remains strong. Nevertheless, there are some signs that this pace might slow due to lower investment and the uncertainty associated with the transition period following the elections," the report says.

Georgia held parliamentary elections on October 1, 2012. The opposition coalition Georgian Dream won the election, after which a new government was formed.

The EBRD says given that the funds provided by a wide range of external donors after the 2008 financial crisis have largely run out, the task of the new government is to attract private funding for investment in key sectors of the economy.

Meanwhile, Secretary General of President Mikheil Saakashvili's party United National Movement (UNM), Vano Merabishvili, urged the new government to switch to an emergency work schedule. Merabishvili said at a briefing on Tuesday that the reason for this is the financial and economic crisis in the country.

"We have already talked about the crisis in the Georgian economy. However, today we reaffirm it with figures which are obtained from different sources," he said.

Merabishvili said that the crisis has affected the rates of economic growth in the first place.

According to him, in October last year economic growth in Georgia was recorded at 6.3 percent and in November at 3.6 per cent, while in December, the figure was a negative 5.2 per cent.

"Under these circumstances, my government would switch to an emergency work schedule in order to urgently solve the problem and achieve positive results," Merabishvili said.

According to Merabishvili, businesspeople are experiencing pressure from law enforcement bodies and their activity is often monitored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.