According to Ivane Machavariani, the candidate for the Minister of Finance, the main challenge of the government for the next 3-4 years is to decrease the foreign debt.

As he stated at the joint sitting of the 5 committees in the parliament, presenting the government program, it is necessary to start reducing the foreign debt and, consequently, the deficit from 2022.

"Economic growth is projected at 4% this year. In 2020 alone, the Georgian economy lost 4 billion GEL. In 2020-2021, the total loss will be 8.5 billion GEL. Although the pandemic is expected to end in 2021, rapid economic growth is unlikely to take place in the world and in our trading partners during the next 3-4 yers. Our main challenges in these years will be to decrease government debt due to the negative effects of the pandemic, which exceeded the 60% threshold for gross domestic product (GDP). In parallel with the reduction of debt, the deficit should be reduced every year. It is necessary to radically reduce it from 2022 and return to the pre-pandemic mark. However, it is important that this does not happen at the expense of economic measures that will hinder economic growth and will not allow us to have a rapid recovery in the post-pandemic period", - said Ivane Machavariani.