For the purposes of reporting the external sector statistics according to the international standards, the National Bank of Georgia intends to implement the information collection system - ITRS (International Transaction Reporting System) from January 2009. Mentioned system is meant for the collection of data with regards to the balance of payments operations through the banking system.

In the connection with the above mentioned issue, the meeting was held at the National Bank of Georgia, which was attended by Mr. David Amaglobeli, the Acting President of the National Bank of Georgia, heads of several structural units of NBG, Ms. Nataliya Ivanik, the Regional Advisor of the International Monetary Fund (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan) and the representatives of commercial banks. Priorities of using the ITRS system and technical issues of its implementation were discussed during the meeting.

Participants of the meeting agreed to create a working group at NBG consisting of the representatives of commercial banks. The main task of the working group is to discuss and improve the design of the system of the collection of statistical information worked out by NBG, in order to take into consideration the requirements of commercial banks with regards to the data as well as the technical specifications. The work of the group will continue during four weeks.

Carrying out of the first one week-long study according to the new system is planned for July.