Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 11
By Rashid Shirinov – Trend:
Despite the negative volatility in foreign markets, Kazakhstan’s foreign trade turnover maintains the trend of steady growth, said the National Economy Minister Timur Suleimenov, Trend reports citing the Kazakh media.
"For the first 9 months of 2018, the trade turnover grew by 21.6 percent to $59.8 billion. Exports increased by 28.2 percent to $39.1 billion," he said at a government meeting.
This is mainly due to an increase in the exports of oil (by 45.4 percent), agricultural products (30.1 percent), oil gas (30.2 percent), aluminum (24 percent) and copper ore (12.5 percent).
Suleimenov added that imports increased by 10.8 percent to $20.8 billion.
"Imports increased, to a greater extent, due to imported machinery and equipment. Their increase was 20.4 percent. Also, imports of ferrous metal products grew by 15.8 percent and of pharmaceuticals by 13.6 percent," the minister said.
Suleimenov also spoke about lending to the economy.
"Lending to the economy continues to decline. As of November 1 this year, loans decreased by 2.6 percent and totaled 12.8 trillion tenge. This is due to the reduction in business lending by 11.4 percent to 7.6 trillion tenge," he said.
At the same time, consumer loans increased by 15.4 percent to 5.2 trillion tenge.
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