Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 12
By Rashid Shirinov – Trend:
National Bank of Kazakhstan will continue to adhere to the regime of free floating exchange rate, Chairman of the National Bank Yerbolat Dossayev said at a government meeting, Trend reports via Kazakh media.
He noted that as of March 11, the tenge exchange rate made up 379.48 tenge per US dollar, and the volume of net interventions of the National Bank in the foreign exchange market in February equaled zero.
Dossayev also informed that the gold and foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank as of March 1, according to preliminary data, amounted to $29.2 billion, and the assets of Kazakhstan National Fund – to $59 billion. The total international reserves made up $88.2 billion.
At the same time, inflation in February was 0.3 percent and annual inflation slowed to 4.8 percent.
Dossayev also said that the lending market continues to recover.
"In January, new loans of 898 billion tenge were issued, which is 8.2 percent more than in the same period last year. As of the end of January, the loan portfolio amounted to 12.5 trillion tenge,” he said.
National Bank chairman also noted that the assets of banks in January decreased by 0.1 percent and made up 25.2 trillion tenge. At the same time, the assets of insurance companies in January increased by 3 percent to 1.08 trillion tenge.
(379.48 KZT = 1 USD on Mar. 12)
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