National Bank to Sell Another Billion Dollars from National Fund

The tenge continues to weaken, while withdrawals from Kazakhstan’s National Fund for budget transfers are on the rise, Orda.kz reports, citing the National Bank.

In its latest currency market update, the National Bank reported that by the end of April, the tenge had depreciated by 1.6%, reaching 512.48 per dollar. The volume of currency trading on KASE increased slightly, from $243 million to $246 million.

In April, the central bank continued selling foreign currency from the National Fund to cover transfers to the national budget, totaling $968 million. For May, the bank expects to maintain sales at a similar level, between $950 million and $1.05 billion.

Additionally, quasi-public sector companies sold about $308 million of their foreign exchange earnings in April. To meet the needs of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (ENPF), the National Bank purchased another $250 million, with the same amount planned for May.

Since the start of the year, the National Fund has already shrunk by over one trillion tenge. Given the pace of currency sales from reserves, withdrawals are expected to increase significantly by the end of the second quarter.

Original Author: Nikita Drobny