In the past period of the current year, deposits in the banking sector (current accounts plus time deposits) still continued to grow. Their volume reached 3.1 billion lari by May 1, 2008, which is 47.1% higher than the comparable figure for the same period of the last year. It should be stressed that during the last year the volume of deposits in the national currency has been growing far more rapidly than the volume of deposits denominated in the foreign currency. In particular, lari deposits increased by 69.6% in the mentioned period and deposits in the foreign currency - by 36.5%, which can be explained by the strengthening of trust towards the national currency.

The growing popularity of lari-denominated deposits has been vividly reflected in the dynamics of dollarization ratio, which decreased by 4.9% as compared to the same period of the last year and equaled 63.0% by May 1, 2008. This process was facilitated by the fact that commercial banks paid higher interests on deposits in the national currency than on the deposits denominated in foreign currency. Average annual interest paid on deposits made in this period constituted 8.7%, among them: 10.1% on deposits in the national currency and 8.5% - on deposits in foreign currency.

It is notable that the structure of deposits in foreign currency has changed significantly during the last year. In particular, if the share of USD was 88.7% in the total volume of deposits in foreign currency and the share of euro - 10.7% (the share of other types of foreign currencies equaled 0.6%), by May of the current year the share of USD decreased to 71.8% and the share of euro increased to 27.4%.

It should be stressed that despite the growth of the positive attitude of the population towards the national currency, the share of deposits denominated in foreign currency still remains high in the whole structure of the individual's deposits, having constituted 78.6% on May 1, 2008. Still, as compared to the same period of last year, this indicator has decreased by 9.9%. During the last year individual deposits grew by 437.9 million lari (43.5%) and exceeded 1.4 billion lari, which amounts to 330 lari per capita.

Present statistical information is being published on the statistics headlines.