BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 29
Trend:
The exchange rate of the Kazakh tenge (KZT) per USD was fluctuating in the range of 423.7 - 427.1 tenge per in August 2021, Trend reports with reference to the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK).
By late August 2021, the KZT/USD exchange rate amounted to 425.4 tenge per, having slightly weakened over the month by 0.2 percent, the NBK said.
The total volume of the ‘KZT to USD’ transactions for the month amounted to $12.6 billion, including the volume of exchange trading on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange - $2.7 billion, the volume of transactions in the OTC (over-the-counter) foreign exchange market - $9.9 billion.
“In the total volume of transactions in the OTC market, the share of one subsidiary bank amounted to 68.3 percent, or $6.8 billion (in July 2021 - 63.6 percent or $6.7 billion), which was associated with hedging of its own capital from foreign exchange risks. These transactions are carried out within the banking group and do not affect the ratio of demand or supply of foreign currency in the domestic foreign exchange market,” the bank said.
“In August 2021, on a net basis, the population of Kazakhstan bought the cash foreign currency worth 242.9 billion tenge ($571.7 million). These expenses decreased by 8.7 percent as compared to the figure for July 2021, which was 266.2 billion tenge ($626.6 million). The volume of net purchases increased by 10.1 percent compared to August 2020 (220.6 billion tenge or $519.3 million),” the NBK report said.
“The bulk of expenses was directed to the purchase of USD - 60.5 percent, or 146.9 billion tenge ($345.8 million), Russian rubles - 26.8 percent, or 65 billion tenge ($153 million), euro - 12.5 percent, or 30.4 billion tenge ($71.5 million). By currency, spending on the purchase of USD over the month decreased by 12.3 percent (an increase of 1.2 percent on annual basis), on the purchase of Russian rubles - by 1.5 percent (an increase of 8.8 percent) and for the purchase of euros - 5.7 percent (an increase of 2 times),” the report added.