According to the new report published on November 8 by the non-governmental organization "Transparency International-Georgia" on the growing dependence of Georgia's economy on Russia, throughout 2022, Georgia's economic dependence on Russia "increased significantly." Yet, the document reads, the relations have not reached a critical level. Georgia will not be in a crisis if bilateral economic ties are severed. The report follows two previous documents published by TI, where a similar trend of increasing economic dependence on Russia is documented.

According to the latest research, in January-September 2022, Georgia received about 2.2 billion US dollars in income from remittances, tourism from Russia, and goods export to Russia. This is 2.6 times more than the income received from Russia from the same sources in the same period last year and even more than the income received in January-September 2019.

The document also states that in January-September 2022, the income from remittances, tourism from Russia, and the export of goods to Russia constituted around 12.6% of the whole Georgian economy. In the same period of 2021, this figure stood at 6.3%, reaching the maximum  (10.4%) in 2019.

The research also shows that 17,000 Russian companies are registered in Georgia, and more than half were registered in Ukraine before Russia started a full-scale war in Ukraine. For example, in March-September 2022, about 9,500 companies were registered in Georgia, which is ten times more than the figure available in 2021. According to the organization, 97% of these companies are individual enterprises.

In the first nine months of this year, Georgian exports to Russia increased by 11% and reached 473 million USD, while in March-September, exports to Russia increased by 6.3%, which was "mainly caused by a 4.4-fold increase in the re-export of light vehicles".

As for imports from Russia, they increased by 73% to 1.2 billion US dollars in January-September 2022. "The share of imports from Russia in the total imports of Georgia was 13.1%, which is the highest in the last 16 years."

According to the study, the import of oil products (fuel) has increased by 350% (329 million USD) since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The share of Russian fuel in the import was 44%. In addition, coal imports increased three times and totaled 57 million US dollars.

In 2022, the growth rate of visitor arrivals from Russia also "accelerated significantly," and 780,000 visitors entered the country in January-September. However, this figure is still 35% lower than in the same period in 2019. "However, in August-September alone, 6% more visitors came from Russia this year than in August-September 2019." According to the same research, in January-September 2022, the share of Russian visitors in the total number of visitors to Georgia was around 20%, which is twice the rate of 2021.

"In April-September 2022, remittances from Russia to Georgia increased five times and amounted to 1.135 billion USD. The main reason for such high growth is the Russian citizens who have moved to Georgia and are sending money from Russia," the study reads.

According to the organization, in the first half of 2022, direct foreign investments from Russia amounted to 12 million US dollars.

The document also prescribes a list of recommendations for the Georgian government to follow to mitigate risks associated with the dependence on Russia: firstly, to start work on signing free trade agreements with all strategic partners with whom we do not yet have such an agreement; secondly, subsidies from the state budget (grant, preferential credit, etc.) should not be given to businesses that increase economic dependence on Russia.