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Kazakh national currency stabilizes as March shocks decline

Finance Materials 6 May 2020 10:12 (UTC +04:00)
Kazakh national currency stabilizes as March shocks decline

BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 6

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Kazakhstan’s local foreign exchange market has more or less stabilized in April compared to March and its shocks, Deputy Governor of the National Bank Aliya Moldabekova said, Trend reports with reference to the National Bank.

She said that following the OPEC+ agreement in early April, a positive trend was set for the Kazakh national currency (tenge). In April, tenge strengthened by 5.2 percent against the US dollar from 447.67 to 424.57 tenge per dollar.

On the backdrop of the tenge strengthening, the demand for foreign currency also started declining.

Moldabekova added that despite the oil market turbulence in the second half of April, due to the shortage of oil storage facilities and the general oversaturation of the market, the tenge exchange rate remained stable, fixing on average at around 430 tenge per dollar.

“Taking into consideration the coronavirus quarantine regime imposed in the country, many ventures operated in a restricted mode, which also affected the decrease in foreign currency demand, and, consequently, the trading volume at the stock exchange. The volume of foreign exchange trading of tenge-dollar halved from $3.4 billion to $1.7 billion in April compared to March,” she said.

Demand was fully offset by the supply of foreign currency by exporting companies, sales of foreign currency from Kazakhstan’s National Fund in order to allocate guaranteed transfers to the budget, as well as by sales of some foreign exchange earnings by quasi-state companies.

She reminded that by an order of Kazakhstan’s President Kassym Jomart Tokayev, the National Bank, together with the government, is in the process of coordinating participation of quasi-state companies in the foreign exchange market. Within the framework of this the quasi-state companies continued to carry out the mandatory sale of part of their foreign exchange earnings. The volume of earnings sold in April 2020 exceeded $230 million.

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