Georgia’s central bank left interest rates unchanged at 8.0% for the sixth consecutive meeting, while inflation remains below the target level of 3.0%. Headline inflation was 2.4% in February. Elsewhere, a court in Tbilisi has sentenced ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili to nine years in total for misspending public funds, a further three years on top of his current sentence. Saakashvili and rights groups have denounced the charges as politically motivated.