The National Bank of Georgia (NBG), in a collaboration with Moody's and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), organized a workshop titled "Emerging Covered Bond Markets." This workshop was designed to offer attendees insights into the dynamics of the covered bond market, credit rating approach, pricing of the instrument, and other relevant practical aspects for issuers and investors.

The workshop was opened with a speech from Mr. Nikoloz Gagua, Vice-Governor of the National Bank of Georgia. In his address, he highlighted the importance of the inception of covered bonds on the Georgian market, underscoring the NBG's unwavering commitment to driving capital market reforms.

The development of covered bond framework marks a new stage for the broad capital market reform initiated by the Government of Georgia and the National Bank of Georgia. Apart from adding diversity and depth of the capital market, the key objective of the new covered bond framework is also to increase the access for commercial banks to diversified sources of funding. We hope that the product will improve access to long-term Georgian Lari funding, enable fixed-to-term mortgage pricing in the medium term, enhance the efficiency of the monetary policy framework and serve as a risk management tool, - said Mr. Gagua.

Attendees had the opportunity to receive valuable covered bond market insights from representatives of Moody's, the European Mortgage Federation - European Covered Bond Council, and EBRD. These experts shared their extensive experiences from Eastern Europe and international markets.