Five Months After the Reset: Georgia's Car Export Engine Is a Quarter Smaller — Inside a Growing Export Economy
Geostat's detailed January–May data settles the question: motor-car re-exports fell about 25%, the old Central Asian corridors fell a third or more, and total exports rose anyway.
The headline and the correction
When Geostat published its detailed January–May 2026 external-trade data in mid-June, it let us replace a proxy that was never quite clean — and the corrected picture is sharper, not softer.
Two independent measures of the car trade agree. Motor cars, taken as a commodity group, fell 24.6% year-on-year, from USD 974.7 million to USD 734.6 million. The broader vehicles commodity section — Section XVII, which the customs data tracks by partner country — fell 24.9%, from USD 1,030.7 million to USD 774.3 million. Either way, Georgia's re-export engine is carrying roughly a quarter less value than it did last spring. It is still the country's single largest export line; it is simply a smaller one.
This supersedes an earlier reading. A first-pass estimate had compared a January–April 2026 window against a 2025 quarter that ran through June — an apples-to-oranges period mismatch that overstated the fall toward 60%. On a clean, like-for-like January–May basis the contraction is about 25%. The direction was right; the magnitude is now correct.
Car exports fall 24.6% while total exports rise 19.8% (Jan–May YoY)
A split-screen economy
The striking part is the backdrop. While car exports shrank, Georgia's total exports grew — up 19.8%, from USD 2.59 billion to USD 3.11 billion. The national export machine is not broken. It is rebalancing away from the trade that made Rustavi famous.
The growth came from everywhere except cars. Total exports to China jumped 145.7% to USD 327.5 million, vaulting China into the number-two destination spot. Türkiye rose 65.6%, Bulgaria 48.6%, and copper ores and petroleum re-exports did much of the rest. Georgia can post a strong export quarter and watch its most visible auto corridor lose momentum at the same time — and in the first five months of 2026, it did exactly that.
A split-screen economy
The striking part is the backdrop. While car exports shrank, Georgia's total exports grew — up 19.8%, from USD 2.59 billion to USD 3.11 billion. The national export machine is not broken. It is rebalancing away from the trade that made Rustavi famous.
The growth came from everywhere except cars. Total exports to China jumped 145.7% to USD 327.5 million, vaulting China into the number-two destination spot. Türkiye rose 65.6%, Bulgaria 48.6%, and copper ores and petroleum re-exports did much of the rest. Georgia can post a strong export quarter and watch its most visible auto corridor lose momentum at the same time — and in the first five months of 2026, it did exactly that.
Car exports fall 24.6% while total exports rise 19.8% (Jan–May YoY)
Section XVII vehicle exports by destination, January–May 2025 vs 2026
The corridors that did the falling
The car contraction is concentrated where it always mattered most. Section XVII exports to Kyrgyzstan — for years the symbolic center of the re-export story — fell 34.2%, from USD 521.7 million to USD 343.0 million. Kazakhstan fell harder, down 41.7%, from USD 285.9 million to USD 166.7 million. Together these two corridors shed roughly USD 298 million of vehicle export value year-on-year — more than the entire national motor-car decline of USD 240 million.
That arithmetic carries the story: the two anchor corridors lost more than the whole national line fell, which means car exports to other destinations actually rose enough to offset part of the Central Asian collapse. Diversification is real. It is just happening inside a smaller pipe, and it is not yet replacing the old scale.
The corridors that did the falling
The car contraction is concentrated where it always mattered most. Section XVII exports to Kyrgyzstan — for years the symbolic center of the re-export story — fell 34.2%, from USD 521.7 million to USD 343.0 million. Kazakhstan fell harder, down 41.7%, from USD 285.9 million to USD 166.7 million. Together these two corridors shed roughly USD 298 million of vehicle export value year-on-year — more than the entire national motor-car decline of USD 240 million.
That arithmetic carries the story: the two anchor corridors lost more than the whole national line fell, which means car exports to other destinations actually rose enough to offset part of the Central Asian collapse. Diversification is real. It is just happening inside a smaller pipe, and it is not yet replacing the old scale.
Section XVII vehicle exports by destination, January–May 2025 vs 2026
Where vehicle exports grew — small bases that cannot replace Central Asia
The near corridor and the diversification that can't fill the gap
The Caucasus looks resilient in the headline trade data — Azerbaijan's total exports slipped only 4.6%, Armenia's grew. Read those as car numbers at your peril. On the vehicles section specifically, Azerbaijan's car corridor fell 34.6% (USD 121.4 million to USD 79.4 million), a third gone even though its all-goods total barely moved. The car line and the total line are telling different stories there, and only the car line is relevant to a re-export dealer.
The genuine bright spots are small. Vehicle exports grew to Armenia (+49.7%), Tajikistan (+145.3%), Uzbekistan (+52.3%), Moldova (+134.9%) and Turkmenistan (+194.2%) — but from bases so low that all five together cannot absorb what Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan gave up. Russia remains a rounding error, under USD 40 thousand for the whole period. The map is diversifying; the capacity is not being replaced.
The near corridor and the diversification that can't fill the gap
The Caucasus looks resilient in the headline trade data — Azerbaijan's total exports slipped only 4.6%, Armenia's grew. Read those as car numbers at your peril. On the vehicles section specifically, Azerbaijan's car corridor fell 34.6% (USD 121.4 million to USD 79.4 million), a third gone even though its all-goods total barely moved. The car line and the total line are telling different stories there, and only the car line is relevant to a re-export dealer.
The genuine bright spots are small. Vehicle exports grew to Armenia (+49.7%), Tajikistan (+145.3%), Uzbekistan (+52.3%), Moldova (+134.9%) and Turkmenistan (+194.2%) — but from bases so low that all five together cannot absorb what Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan gave up. Russia remains a rounding error, under USD 40 thousand for the whole period. The map is diversifying; the capacity is not being replaced.
Where vehicle exports grew — small bases that cannot replace Central Asia
The trade runs smaller in both directions
This is not only an export story. Motor-car imports fell too — down 20.2%, from USD 1.57 billion to USD 1.25 billion in the same five months. Fewer cars are coming in, and fewer are going out. The whole machine Georgia built around buying cars at auction, clearing or transiting them, and reselling them onward is running at lower volume on both sides of the border.
The new scorecard
The right question for the next report is not "where did the cars go?" but "how much corridor capacity is left?" The answer is concrete: the national car line is a quarter smaller, the two anchor corridors are a third to two-fifths smaller, and the growth that kept Georgia's export total green came from non-car trade. The cars that did not re-export did not vanish — they stay in the country, where our own listing data shows the consequence: 56.6% of active listings still uncleared and a domestic market that has tipped toward the buyer. A capacity map, not a pivot map: which destinations still clear volume, and where the unsold inventory pressure comes home.
Methodology
Geostat (National Statistics Office of Georgia), detailed External Merchandise Trade, January–May 2026, published 2026-06-19, plus the interactive trade portal (ex-trade.geostat.ge) for the Section XVII by-country series. 2026 values are preliminary; 2025 values are final. All values in thousand USD, FOB for exports. · Section XVII (Vehicles, aircraft, vessels and associated transport equipment) EXPORT by destination, Jan–May 2025 → 2026: Kyrgyzstan 521,728.4 → 343,034.3 (−34.2%); Kazakhstan 285,878.1 → 166,689.4 (−41.7%); Azerbaijan 121,397.9 → 79,438.8 (−34.6%); Armenia 26,790.4 → 40,115.8 (+49.7%); Tajikistan 16,159.1 → 39,636.2 (+145.3%); Uzbekistan 12,091.4 → 18,417.4 (+52.3%); Moldova 2,489.0 → 5,848.9 (+134.9%); Turkmenistan 1,368.6 → 4,025.6 (+194.2%); Ukraine 3,316.1 → 4,318.2 (+30.2%); Russia ≈ 39.6 → 39.4 (negligible). World Section XVII total 1,030,724.4 → 774,321.2 (−24.9%). · Motor cars (HS 8703), all destinations: 974,680.0 → 734,569.2 (−24.6%). Motor-car imports: 1,567,172.6 → 1,251,372.0 (−20.2%). Both figures cross-checked to the decimal against Geostat's HS4 export/import files. · Total exports: 2,594,355.1 → 3,107,658.7 (+19.8%). Total exports by destination (all commodities) for the split-screen point: China 133,300.1 → 327,530.4 (+145.7%); Türkiye 136,152.0 → 225,492.3 (+65.6%); Bulgaria 80,996.7 → 120,358.7 (+48.6%). · Verification: Section XVII Jan–April 2026 pulled from the portal API matched the repo's trade_export 2026.xlsx (e.g. Kyrgyzstan 263,526.0 vs 263,525.9) before extending to Jan–May; Jan–May figures all exceed the known Jan–April values by one month, as expected. · Correction note: this replaces an earlier draft estimate that compared a Jan–April 2026 window against a Jan–June 2025 quarter, overstating the per-corridor decline. All figures here are like-for-like January–May. · Internal cross-reference: AutoBridge active-listing snapshot 2026-06-22 — 29,007 active listings, 56.6% uncleared.
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