N e w s

In the issued press-release of the National Bank of Kazakhstan on March 16 it says that there has been a deccrease in gross and net international reserves in the first half of March. The gross gold and currency reserves of Kazakhstan in current prices for March 15 totaled $1.903,3 million from $1.961,4 for February 29 (1.24% fall). The decrease of the international reserves by $58.1 million was caused by the decrease of currency reserves by $54.4 million and assets in gold by $3.7 million (caused by the gold price fall by 1.3%).

The decrease of the currency reserves is connected mainly with debt repayments of the internal debt of the Finance Ministry and operations of the Bank at the internal currency market, reports the press-release. The currency reserves in current prices for March 15 totaled $1.381 from $1.513,3 on January 31 (2.26% decrease). In permanent prices gross and net international reserves decreased 2.6 and 1.8% respectively, says the press-release.

In permanent prices on March 15 The gross gold and currency reserves totaled $1.904.2 billion, net international reserves - $1.480,1 billion. Currency assets decreased 3.8%, gold assets grew 0.6% (due to the internal market gold transactions of the Bank). Growth of net internal assets of the National Bank (decrease of Government deposits) caused the growth of cash assets by 1.8% (or by 1.9 billion tenge), says the press release. On March 15 the cash asset amount totaled 105.1 billion tenge from 103.2 billion tenge on February 29.

Source: Finmarket