ALMATY (TCA) — The National Bank of Kazakhstan said that the country’s international reserves, including gold and foreign currency reserves of the National Bank and assets of the National (Oil) Fund, in 2015 decreased by 10.6 percent, from US $102.452 billion down to $91.581 billion.
The National Bank reserves decreased by $1.136 billion or 3.89 percent, down to $28.073 billion, and the National Fund assets lowered by $9.735 billion or 13.29 percent, down to $63.508 billion, the National Bank said.
Kazakhstan’s international reserves are decreasing as the country’s national currency, the tenge, continues to fall against the US dollar amid low oil prices.
The Chairman of the Atameken national chamber of entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan, Abylai Myrzakhmetov, believes the exchange rate of the tenge has not yet reached its lowest point, but this would happen in the nearest months, Novosti-Kazakhstan news agency reported.
The official tenge rate set by the National Bank on January 14 was 364.89 tenges per $1.
“Today’s exchange rate of the tenge to dollar is pegged to oil prices,” Myrzakhmetov told journalists on January 14. “Devaluation has helped exporting sectors to support themselves, but devaluation has another side — price growth. Our economy has turned to be more import dependent than Russia’s. Regretfully, we have not reached the bottom, but this is a question of the nearest months.”
In his opinion, Kazakhstan should carry out a serious import substitution program, as the current devaluation of the tenge has pushed up the prices, which negatively affects both ordinary citizens and business.
