The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) made net purchases of USD 248.5 million on its BMatch trading platform in September, taking the country’s international reserves to USD 8.17 billion, the central bank said on 26 October.
Key figures
- September net purchases: USD 248.5 million through BMatch.
- International reserves at end-September: USD 8.17 billion.
- Net purchases in January–September 2026: about USD 3.37 billion.
- Next data release: the NBG will publish updated international reserves data on 25 November 2026.
What the NBG said
The central bank said it keeps building its foreign exchange reserves whenever market conditions allow, and that reserves have repeatedly hit record highs in recent months. It described international reserves as an important safeguard for the country’s macroeconomic stability.
The September purchase is part of the bank’s efforts to rebuild its foreign exchange reserves over the past year.
Month-by-month net purchases in 2026
- January: USD 86.6 million
- February: USD 429.3 million (report)
- March: net sale of USD 16.2 million
- April: USD 333.3 million (report)
- May: USD 632.9 million (report)
- June: USD 612.6 million (report)
- July: USD 488.2 million
- August: USD 555.6 million
- September: USD 248.5 million
September’s purchase was the smallest since March, when the bank was a net seller, and well below the USD 488.2 million to USD 632.9 million bought in each of May, June, July and August.
Why it matters
Georgia’s reserves ended 2025 at USD 6.16 billion, so the end-September figure of USD 8.17 billion is a rise of about 32.6 percent, or roughly USD 2 billion, in nine months, Interfax reported. The agency said reserves rose 14.7 percent in the third quarter alone, and that the IMF’s reserve adequacy (ARA) metric stood at 128.7 percent at the end of September, above the fund’s 100 percent threshold, although IMF experts noted in June that reserves needed to be strengthened further.
The pace is well ahead of a year ago. In September 2025 the NBG bought USD 100 million and reserves were just over USD 5.4 billion, 1TV reported. The NBG’s own August release put reserves at USD 8.14 billion, up 56.4 percent year on year, so the September figure extends an already record level.
Larger reserves give the central bank more capacity to respond to swings in the lari, which is why the NBG describes them as a safeguard for the country’s macroeconomic stability.
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