Baku, Azerbaijan, May 2
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
In March 2019, Kazakhs mostly were buying dollars (53 percent of the total amount of purchase of foreign currencies) 2019, Trend reports with reference to the National Bank of Kazakhstan.
At the same time, expenses for buying dollars decreased by 26, 9 percent.
As reported, Kazakhs bought foreign currency in cash on a net basis in the amount of 160.5 billion tenge. The regulator states that in March 2019, most Kazakhs spent 85 billion tenge for the purchase of dollars (53 percent of the total amount). Sales of the ruble amounted to 47.3 billion tenge (29.4 percent), and the euro to 27.8 billion tenge (17.4 percent).
Compared to February 2019, these expenses decreased by 19.4 percent. By type of currency, the expenses for buying dollars decreased by 26.9 percent, and for buying and rubles by 9.5 percent and by 8.3 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the total net sales by exchange offices of cash foreign currency in January-March 2019 reached 502.3 billion tenge and increased by 9.3 percent compared to the same period of the previous year (in January-March 2018 the total net sales was 459.4 billion tenge).
The National Bank reported that the national currency exchange rate changed in the range of 375.9-380.06 tenge for $ 1 in March 2019. At the end of March 2018, the exchange rate was 380.04 tenge per $ 1.
The total volume of operations on the tenge-dollar currency pair for March 2019 amounted to $11 billion (a decrease by 28.7 percent for the month), including the volume of exchange trading on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange reaching $2.1 billion (a decrease of 22.5 percent).
The volume of operations in the over-the-counter foreign exchange market amounted to $9 billion (a decrease of 29.9 percent). In addition, the volume of operations of one subsidiary bank related to hedging equity capital from currency risks amounted to $6.7 billion, a decrease of 8.4 percent compared with February 2019.
Moreover, their share of the total volume of OTC trading amounted to 74.9 percent (57.3 percent in February 2019).
($1- 381.25 tenge on May 2)
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