The National Bank of Georgia has published its monthly macroeconomic review, providing an updated snapshot of conditions in the country’s banking and financial sectors and key macroeconomic indicators. The latest data show annual inflation at 5.7% in May, with core inflation at 3.5% and services inflation at 3.8%, while bank lending continued to expand in April with loan growth of 14.1% after excluding exchange rate effects. In the banking sector, deposit dollarization was unchanged at 46.6% in April and dollarization of the total credit portfolio fell by 0.1 percentage point to 42.5%. On the external side, goods imports fell 2.9% year on year to USD 1.5 billion, mainly because of lower consumer and investment goods imports, while goods exports rose 16.1% to USD 716.3 million, led by intermediate and consumer goods. Official international reserves increased by USD 154.2 million from the previous month to USD 6.5 billion as of April.