ALMATY (TCA) — Kazakhstan’s international reserves, including gold and foreign currency reserves of the National Bank and National Fund assets, amounted to $96.2 billion at the end of June 2016, the press service of the National Bank said.
As of the beginning of this year, Kazakhstan’s international reserves totaled $91.4 billion, including $27.9 billion in the gold and foreign currency reserves of the National Bank and $63.5 billion in the National Fund.
“The gold and foreign currency reserves of the National Bank had amounted to $30.5 billion at the end of June 2016, the largest amount since July 2012. The National Fund assets had reached $65.7 billion,” the press service said with reference to National Bank Chairman Daniyar Akishev’s interview to Bloomberg.
According to Akishev, National Bank interventions in the currency market in June in the form of buying foreign currency amounted to as little as $2.5 million, which was “practically a zero”.
He said that points to stabilization on the currency market. The National Bank has minimized its participation in the currency market and the exchange rate of the tenge is being fixed without the participation of Kazakhstan’s central bank.
According to the National Bank, between February and May 2016 private individuals in Kazakhstan sold almost $1 billion. The share of foreign-currency deposits in Kazakh banks had decreased from its maximum of 70 percent in January 2016 down to 60 percent at the end of May.
