Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 20
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:
The depreciation of the Kazakh tenge rate will not greatly affect Azerbaijan, Oqtay Ahverdiyev, doctor of economics, former head of the pricing, economic and fiscal policy department of the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers, told Trend August 20.
"Azerbaijan has its own monetary policy and the country's central bank adjusts the exchange rate of manat," he said. "Therefore, the depreciation of the tenge rate will not affect Azerbaijan."
The expert said that the depreciation of the national currency rate of one country affects another only in case of extensive trade relations between them.
"The trade with the CIS countries is about 22 percent of the total foreign trade turnover of Azerbaijan," he said. "Kazakhstan's share in the total foreign trade turnover is only 1.06 percent. Therefore, it is not worth expecting any harmful impact of the depreciation of the tenge rate on Azerbaijan."
The expert said that the depreciation of the tenge rate will not cause strong growth in grain prices that Azerbaijan imports from Kazakhstan.
"Grain prices are regulated not by Kazakhstan but the world grain market," said Ahverdiyev. "Thus, grain prices rise in some countries only if they rise on the world grain market. At the same time, in case of increase in grain prices, the Cabinet of Ministers decides to exempt the imported grain from VAT, which allows regulating prices and preventing the rising cost of grain. It should also be noted that Azerbaijan imports about 300,000 metric tons of grain from Kazakhstan, while the total amount of grain imported in the country is about 1 million metric tons a year."
On Aug.20, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov announced that Kazakhstan has launched a new monetary policy based on a free-floating tenge rate, and canceled the currency corridor. The weighted average rate of tenge fell to 255.26 tenge per dollar (from 188.38 tenge on Aug.19) on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) at the first trading after this announcement.
The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan decreased by 2.76 times for the year and amounted to $63.64 million on the results of January-July 2015, according to the State Customs Committee (SCC) of Azerbaijan. At the same time, goods worth $56.06 million were imported, while $7.58 million worth goods were exported to Azerbaijan from Kazakhstan.
Edited by CN