At today's briefing Giorgi Kadagidze made a statement on the recent accusations against the National Bank of Georgia. According to him, the statements that we have been hearing lately are nothing more than an attempt to mask the country's real problems.

"The National Bank always tries to keep out of political processes, however, lately I have had to repeatedly state that the attacks and smear campaign against the Central Bank had to be stopped. The statements that we have been hearing lately are nothing more than an irresponsible attempt to mask our country's most important and sensitive issues -devaluation of lari, economic growth and the real incomes of our citizens.

According to him, discussions should be underway today about the steps we need to take to improve the situation, about a visa liberalization and investments, about the ways how to increase exports and tourism revenues, reduction of bureaucratic expenditures - about everything that will promote increase of foreign currency inflows, contribute to country's economic growth, have positive impact on lari exchange rate and will have positive real effect on each citizen's incomes.

Instead of this, campaign against the National Bank, one of the most developed and successful institution has been continued. It was started with pressure on the National Bank to spend the international reserves which would have given effect only in the short term and would have led to unacceptable results. There were absolutely groundless claims as though the NBG intentionally increases money supply in order to devaluate the national currency and finally, accusing the commercial banks of uncertain speculations and the conspiracy theories have taken place. Of course when the discussion begins on this issue both in open and close format these accusations are vanishing and the counterarguments of the National Bank remain without response", - the NBG Governor stated.

Mr. Kadagidze explains: "Without the principal position of the NBG towards all these demands, the harm caused to our citizens today would have been bigger and damage to the country would have been hard and irreversible. It is not only my assessment, all international organizations confirm this. We have already made similar mistakes in the nineties and we cannot afford to repeat them again.

At the briefing Giorgi Kadagidze called on the Government to sign the Letter of Intent with the International Monetary Fund as soon as possible: "We call on the Government to sign the Letter of Intent with the IMF, where the parameters of macroeconomic framework are fixed and move to the concrete activities which should be the precondition for the positive trends.

It is necessary to take quick and effective steps. The NBG has been talking about it over the eight months. This is not a time for putting the onus on someone and witch hunting.

I am calling on again to stop pressure and attacks against the National Bank. It has a negative impact on investors' behaviour, desire of donors and partners to continue cooperation with Georgia. Similar irresponsible activities reflected in our citizens ultimately", - Giorgi Kadagidze stated.

The Governor answered the questions of the media.

He told reporters at a press conference that similar statements about IMF damage our country's reputation.

"Of course, this statement was nothing serious. The International Monetary Fund is an organization that has been supporting Georgia's economic development for years. IMF reports are taken as guidelines by investors and donors who fund infrastructure projects. So, at the very least, these kinds of statements damage our country's reputation", - said Kadagidze.