BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 6
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Reserves of Kazakhstan’s National Bank increased in Apr. 2020 by $720 million having amounted to $30.5 billion, according to preliminary data, Deputy Governor of the National Bank Aliya Moldabekova said, Trend reports with reference to the bank.
Moldabekova said that the reserves increase was mainly due to the gold price increase from $1,605 to $1,717 per ounce as a result of which the reserves themselves increased by $1.1 billion to $20.8 billion.
“Within the framework of the concept for the formation and use of the National Fund for its further diversification in April, the National Bank sold refined gold worth $250 million to the Fund,” Moldabekova said.
Thus, the gold in the National Bank reserves and the National Fund assets ensures safety, especially during the high volatility period on foreign markets, which has been happening since the second half of March this year. In the case of need, gold can be converted into hard currencies.
“The preliminary data said that foreign currency share of the reserves decreased by $400 million to $9.7 billion. The National Bank did carry out any interventions in April. The decrease in the foreign currency portion of the reserves was mainly due to a decrease in foreign currency balances of country’s second-tier banks in the National Bank,” she said.
Moldabekova went on to explain that the reason was due to the fact that following March increase in the deposits dollarization a partial reverse conversion of funds and deposits of bank customers from foreign currency to tenge could be observed.
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