Exports grew 19.6% and imports only 5.3% in nine months
Georgian goods exports reached $6.15 billion in January to September 2026, up 19.6% on the same nine months of 2025, while imports rose 5.3% to $14.38 billion. Total trade turnover was $20.5 billion, up 9.2%, and the trade deficit stood at $8.23 billion. The figures come from Geostat and were reported on 18 October. Exports growing at nearly four times the pace of imports is the first time in several years that the gap has narrowed from the export side rather than from a slump in buying.
A deficit of eight billion is still a deficit
Imports are more than twice exports, and the gap of $8.23 billion over nine months is the structural fact behind every conversation about the lari. A country that buys far more than it sells closes the difference with tourism receipts, remittances, foreign investment and borrowing, which is why a weak tourism quarter shows up in the exchange rate rather than only in hotel occupancy. For an owner whose costs are in lari and whose rent is quoted in dollars, that chain is the whole argument for watching trade data at all.
Who buys and who sells
On the January to August breakdown, the largest export destinations were Kyrgyzstan, China and Russia, while the largest source of imports was Türkiye, followed by Russia and the United States. Motor cars remain the single biggest export category even though the volume fell year on year, which tells you that the headline growth came from elsewhere: petroleum products and ores and concentrates of precious metals both rose sharply to become the second and third largest groups. A re-export trade in cars and a commodity trade in metals are two very different businesses, and the second is far more exposed to world prices than the first.
Why a property owner should care
Trade data reaches property through two channels. The first is the currency: a narrower deficit, other things equal, takes pressure off the lari, and a stable lari makes a lari-denominated mortgage and a dollar-denominated rent less likely to pull in opposite directions. The second is construction costs, since cement, steel, fittings and machinery are imported, and import growth of only 5.3% is consistent with input costs that are rising but not racing. Neither channel is fast. Both are the sort of thing that explains, a year later, why a budget written in 2026 did or did not hold.
Written by us from the source linked above, not investment, legal or tax advice. Figures and rules change — confirm anything that matters before acting on it.
