Azerbaijan, Baku, April 1 / Trend E.Ostapenko /
The National Bank of Kazakhstan's main task is to ensure price stability in 2011, Chairman Grigoriy Marchenko wrote Trend in an e-mail on Friday. This means maintaining an annual inflation rate of 6-8 percent, he added.
"The bank has defined as its priority setting a monetary policy to ensure price stability and low annual inflation," Marchenko said.
While maintaining the economy's stress on raw materials, the economy is largely dependent on world energy prices, especially oil, he said. In addition, world prices on commodities such as metals and wheat impact inflation processes in the country.
"Currently, world food markets record increase in price. This factor impacts pricing in Kazakhstan. We estimate that about 30 percent of our goods and services fall to imported goods," he said.
Meanwhile, Marchenko said the creation of the Customs Union should help stabilize prices on Russian and Belarusian goods as these countries are major trade partners for Kazakhstan.