Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.11
By Nigar Guliyeva – Trend:
The fundamental factors that determine the national currency rate in Kazakhstan in the medium term, are favorable. In 2017, the tenge strengthened in nominal terms by 0.3 percent against the USD, Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Daniyar Akishev said at a government meeting on Jan.11.
Akishev said that for 11 months of 2017 the index of the real effective exchange rate remained practically unchanged.
"The tenge in real terms strengthened against the USD by 4.6 percent, to the yuan - by 0.8 percent, and to the euro and the ruble showed a decrease of 5 percent and 0.8 percent respectively. The index of the real effective exchange rate to the base level of competitiveness of December 2013 decreased by 21 percent, which indicates the preservation of the competitiveness of Kazakh goods, " Akishev said.
He further added that, according to preliminary data, the National Bank's gold and currency reserves at the end of 2017 amounted to 31.1 billion US dollars. Growth for the year was 4.7 percent.
"Assets of the National Fund in foreign currency at the end of the year amounted to $57.7 billion, total international reserves amounted to $88.8 billion," he said.
Furthermore, the volume of deposits by late November amounted to 17.7 trillion tenge, having decreased by 2.7 percent since the beginning of the year. Deposits in foreign currency decreased by 13.4 percent, deposits in tenge increased by 10 percent. As a result, the share of deposits in foreign currency decreased to 48.6 percent. The volume of bank loans to the economy in 11 months increased by 1.8 percent to 13 trillion tenge. Loans in tenge increased by 10 percent to 9.4 trillion tenge, in foreign currency they decreased by 15.3 percent.