In March, more than $214 million was transferred from Russia to Georgia

In March, more than 214 million dollars were transferred from Russia to Georgia, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) reported. This is 49 percent of all remittances received from other countries. In second place is Italy – 43 million dollars were transferred from it to Georgia.

NBG emphasizes that the growth of remittances in March of this year compared to March of 2022 amounted to 127 percent. First of all, thanks to the growth of translations from Russia.

The recipients of the money are mostly Russian citizens who moved to Tbilisi and Batumi since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is no accurate data on the number of Russians who moved to Georgia – primarily due to the local authorities’ desire to hide this number from the opposition, which accuses the ruling party “Georgian Dream” of “allowing the influx of Russians as the basis of the Kremlin’s fifth column” – as it was recently expressed Chairman of Mikhail Saakashvili’s United National Movement party, Levan Khabeishvili.

But according to unofficial data, the number of Russians who came to Georgia exceeds 120 thousand. They mainly use fast money transfer systems, since the NBG introduced a number of restrictions for Russians to open an account in local banks. In addition, Russians, unlike citizens of other states, do not have the right to receive more than 2 thousand dollars at the same time. Therefore, many divide transfers into several tranches.

After the start of the war in Ukraine and the migration of Russian citizens, real estate in Georgia rose sharply on both the primary and secondary markets by an average of 40-50 percent, and the national currency, lari, strengthened by 20-22 percent per hour.