“As expected, in line with the central forecast of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), overall inflation has begun normalizing, and as of December, the annual inflation level amounted to 4 percent, which makes a decrease by 0.2 percent in comparison to the last month,” said Tamta Sopromadze, Head of NBG Macroeconomic and Statistics Department.

According to Tamta Sopromadze, measurements of long-term inflation expectations are significantly below the targeted 3%.

“For instance, core inflation, which excludes food, energy and tobacco prices from overall inflation, is around 1.6% as of December. Also, services inflation, which best reflects long-term inflation expectations, is still below the 3% margin and amounts to 2.5%,” Sopromadze said.

Tamta Sopromadze added that the NBG publishes macroeconomic forecast scenarios, and according to the central forecast, which serves as the main guideline in decision-making, inflation should have gradually normalized by the end of the year.

“We expect that average inflation will be 3.5% in 2026,” she concluded.