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 2.9 billion lari by March 1, 2008, which is 47.2% higher than the comparable figure for the same period of the last year. Two thirds of the entire deposit structure falls on deposits in the foreign currency. Nevertheless, 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 83.5% in the mentioned period and deposits in the foreign currency - by 33.2%, 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 6.4% as compared to the same period of the last year and equaled 65.5% by March 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 8.6%, 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 89.2% in the total volume of deposits in foreign currency and the share of euro - 10.3% (the share of other types of foreign currencies equaled 0.5%), by March of the current year the share of USD decreased to 78.6% and the share of euro increased to 20.6%.

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 population's deposits, having constituted 82.5% on March 1, 2008. Still, as compared to the same period of last year, this indicator has decreased by 7.9%. During the last year individual deposits grew by 396.5 million lari (40.3%) and reached 1.4 billion lari, which amounts to 314 lari per capita.

Current statistical information is published on the statistics page of the NBG's website.