Kazakhstan's central bank cut its key refinancing rate on Tuesday to 9.0 percent from 9.5 percent as Central Asia's biggest economy sought to curb the impact of the global economic slowdown, Reuters reported.
The financial crisis has pushed Kazakhstan, an oil-producing Caspian nation, to the brink of recession and forced the government to allocate $25 billion -- roughly a quarter of its gross domestic product -- to revive the economy.
"The central bank has set the official refinancing rate at 9.0 percent from May 12," the bank said in a statement.
The government sees economic growth at 1 percent this year after years of double-digit expansion due to high oil prices but some economists say the $100 billion economy will most likely slip into recession.
The economy grew 3.1 percent in 2008 and nearly 9 percent in 2007. In February, the central bank radically widened the national tenge currency's trading corridor, allowing it to drop to about 150 tenge against the dollar from about 122 previously.