Government Comments on Tenge Exchange Rate

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Nurlan Baibazarov made a statement regarding the currency market situation, Orda.kz reports.

He stressed that “the adjustment of the national currency rate is a phenomenon caused exclusively by the impact of fundamental external factors.”

Among the reasons, he named: 

• Global strengthening of the dollar index in recent months
• Decline in world oil prices
• Weakening of the Russian ruble

Considering that Russia is our major trading partner, fluctuations in the ruble can have an impact on the tenge exchange rate, Baibazarov said.

At the same time, he urged to remain calm.

No default is expected either from the government or from the quasi-public sector. If this concerns financial issues in general, issues of attracting investments, return on investments, and so on. Finances are generally stable, the state has reserves, so there is no need to talk about any default here. (...) We already went through such a case in 2022, when people bought on the secondary market for almost 600 tenge per dollar and ended up with a negative financial balance,
 he assured.

According to him, currency fluctuations have always occurred and will happen again.

The question is how to react and what preventive measures to take to reduce the negative consequences of such exchange rate fluctuations, he said.

Original Author: Zhadra Zhulmukhametova