Kazakhstan, Astana, Feb.22 / Trend A. Maratov /
Kazakh National Bank bought the currency worth $4 billion on the domestic market since early year to prevent an excessive consolidation of the national currency - tenge, the head of the National Bank, Grigory Marchenko said on Tuesday speaking at a regular governmental meeting.
"In order to prevent a significant consolidation of rate of tenge, in recent months the National Bank buys currency in large amounts on the domestic market," Marchenko said.
He said in 2010 the National Bank bought the currency in the amount of two billion dollars, while in January, 2011 - $1.8 billion, and in February - two billion dollars.
"That is for two months this year, the National Bank bought twice more than the figure of last year and this trend continues. That is, the aggregate gold-exchange reserves of the country continues to grow, if in late last year they amounted to $59 billion, today they hit $64 billion," he said.
He assured the Prime Minister that the National Bank will not allow an excessive consolidation of the rate of tenge and watches over the situation on both domestic and foreign markets.
"We will not allow excessive consolidation of tenge. Our task is ensuring the exchange rate of the national currency," he said.