The National Bank of Georgia published its monthly review of banking, financial and macroeconomic conditions, reporting annual inflation of 5.5% in July and record official international reserves exceeding USD 7.1 billion in June. Consumer prices fell 0.4% from June, while core inflation was 3.5% and services inflation was 4.4%. Excluding exchange-rate effects, loan growth reached 14.5% in June. Deposit dollarization declined to 43.8%, while foreign currency lending accounted for 41.6% of the total credit portfolio. Goods exports rose 20.4% year over year to USD 770.8 million and imports increased 7.5% to USD 1.6 billion. Official reserves grew by USD 115.8 million from the previous month.