Kazakhstan: Up to $1 Billion to Be Sold from National Fund in April

To support budget transfers, between $950 million and $1.05 billion is planned to be sold from Kazakhstan's National Fund in April — nearly 30% more than in March, Orda.kz reports.

According to the National Bank, the tenge weakened by 1% over the past month, with the exchange rate now at 504.27 per U.S. dollar. In March, trading volume on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) totaled $4.1 billion.

Last month, $748 million was withdrawn from the National Fund to finance budget transfers and a gas pipeline project between Taldykorgan and Usharal. The National Bank is now preparing to increase these sales significantly.

Additionally, the regulator continues its "mirroring" policy — selling foreign currency in the same amount as the gold it purchases from local mining companies. In Q1, this sterilized 742 billion tenge, and 640 billion more is planned for Q2 (213 billion in April alone).

Quasi-public enterprises also contributed $376 million through mandatory foreign currency sales.

To maintain the foreign exchange portion of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (ENPF), the National Bank continued purchasing dollars in March. These acquisitions are expected to total no more than $250 million in April.

Earlier in March, it was reported that transfers from the National Fund to the republican budget had already exceeded one trillion tenge since the beginning of the year.

Original Author: Nikita Drobny