Nodar Khaduri

Nodar Khaduri, Finance Minister of Georgia. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–The government of Georgia disagrees with a prognosis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicating that Georgia’s economic growth will experience a further slowdown.

Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri said Friday that the government has been working on these prognoses and disagrees with the one by the IMF, calling it ‘unimaginable.’ He is astonished by the ‘quite unimaginable prognosis’ about reduced employment.

“There hasn’t been any communication about this issue with the government of Georgia and the Ministry of Finance – at all. No factual data will prove that there can be any problems,” he said.

The IMF published a new report on Thursday which downgrades the prognosis of Georgia’s economic growth from 4 to 2.5 percent. In the beginning of the year, IMF predicted 6 percent growth in 2013.

According to the IMF, economic growth will be 5 percent next year, which is now reflected in the draft 2014 budget. The level of unemployment will increase by 1.7 percent compared to last year and reach 16.7 percent. Next year, IMF expects unemployment to increase further to 17.3 percent.