...

Kazakhstan's National Bank purchases over 50 tons of gold

Business Materials 10 December 2019 15:53 (UTC +04:00)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec.10

By Nargiz Sadikhova – Trend:

Kazakhstan’s National Bank purchased 50.6 tons of gold during 11 months of 2019, whereas purchased volume in year 2018 was 50.8 tons in total, Director of Monetary Operations Department of the Bank Aliya Moldabekova said, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstan’s Kapital.kz news agency.

According to Moldabekova, increase of prices for gold can be named the man trend of 2019.

“The price increased by almost $200 per ounce, which became the reason for increase of the gold assets share in total value of foreign exchange reserves. The gold prices increased due to the growth of geopolitical uncertainty and the risks of a slowdown in the global economy, which for the most part led to increase of value of safe assets,” Moldabekova said.

Thus, the National Bank went on purchasing gold bullions.

“Some 50.6 tons of gold were purchased during 11 months of 2019, whereas purchased volume in year 2018 was 50.8 tons,” she said.

Furthermore, Moldabekova noted that Kazakhstan is among TOP-20 countries by the volume of gold reserves globally, leaving behind many developed countries.

“Talking about the negative trends, the repayment of external obligations of the quasi-public sector was the main reason for the decrease in the foreign currency reserves. Taking into account the current situation with excess tenge liquidity, the national bank assumes that the quasi-public sector will carry the bulk of the tenge denominated loans on the local market, which will reduce their currency risks,” she said.

According to the statistics of Kazakhstan’s National Bank, the assets in gold stood at $17.8 billion in November 2019, which is 2.1 percent less than in October and 24.2 percent more than in December 2018.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh

Tags:
Latest

Latest