TBILISI: Georgia's central bank plans to tighten monetary policy from next week, the bank's chief said on Friday, in an effort to maintain financial stability after a sharp fall in the value of the country's lari currency.
"We've decided to tighten monetary policy from next week by using all the mechanisms that we have," Georgy Kadagidze, the governor of the National Bank, told reporters.
Kadagidze said the central bank was also likely to revise down its forecast for economic growth this year of 5 percent in the South Caucasus country.
"Taking into account the challenges in the economy and analysing the current situation, we should start to revise down the 5 percent economic growth forecast," Kadagidze said.
Georgia's economy has suffered some side effects from the plunge in the Russian rouble and the Ukraine crisis.
The Georgian lari slipped to 2.0576 per dollar on Thursday, from 1.7542 lari at the start of November.
The central bank kept its key refinancing rate unchanged at 4 percent in December, after data showed annual inflation below the government's 6 percent target for 2014.
Consumer prices rose 2.8 percent year-on-year in November after rising 3.4 percent year-on-year in October. The central bank's next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for Feb. 11.
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