BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 3
By Nargiz Sadikhova – Trend:
Kazakhstan’s National Bank has decreased base rate to 9.5 percent annual and expanded percent corridor to plus-minus two percent points, Trend reports with reference to the National Bank.
Thus, the rate on operations with constant access to liquidity provision will be 11.5 percent, and the rate on permanent access to liquidity withdrawals by 7.5 percent. The decision is to enter into force on Apr.6, 2020.
The National Bank said that decrease of the base rate is among bank’s measures to provide for financial stability, restriction of risks for country’s economy and its adaptation to the new conditions of foreign and country’s situation.
“Decrease of base rate among with other measures of National Bank, including expansion of the ‘Economy of Simple Things’ program to one trillion tenge ($2.2 billion) and introduction of the Concessional lending program for small and medium business worth 600 billion tenge ($41.3 billion), will allow to smooth out the impact of coronavirus on Kazakh economy and support country’s economic activity,” the National Bank said.
On March 15, 2020, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym Jomart Tokayev signed a decree introducing an emergency state in Kazakhstan due to the coronavirus outbreak, which came in force from 08:00 (GMT +6) on March 16 and will last till 08:00 on April 15, 2020.
The latest data said that the total number of coronavirus cases in Kazakhstan is 453 people.
On the morning of March 9, 2020, Brent crude plunged 25 percent dropping to its lowest since February 2016 and recording the biggest one-day percentage declines since Jan. 17, 1991.
Trading volumes in the front-month hit record highs in the previous session after a three-year pact between Saudi Arabia and Russia and other major oil producers to limit supply fell apart on March 6, 2020.
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