BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 11
Trend:
The Kazakh National Fund’s foreign exchange assets amounted to $55 billion in September 20201, having decreased by $1.9 billion as compared to August 2021, Deputy Chairperson of the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) Aliya Moldabekova said, Trend reports citing the Kazakh media.
“Over the past month, 392 billion tenge ($922.5 million) was allocated in the form of a guaranteed and targeted transfer to the state budget. In order to fulfill applications for transfers, foreign currency assets worth $913 million were sold. At the same time, receipts to the fund in September in foreign currency amounted to $259 million,” said the NBK chairperson.
“As I have already noted, in the past month, we have witnessed a drastic adjustment in the financial markets. Amid capital outflow into money market tools, there was a simultaneous decrease in the value of both risky and defensive assets: quotations of shares, corporate bonds, and gold have fallen. The prices for bonds of developed countries, albeit slightly, but also dropped. Consequently, investment income for September, having dropped by 2.11 percent or $1.2 billion, turned out to be negative. This, more precisely, was caused by a 4.1 percent fall in the stock market, 1.3 percent in bonds and 4.6 percent in gold,” she noted.
“The simultaneous decline in prices for all asset classes is short-term, and in the long-term, the strategic allocation of the National Fund's assets balances risks. Since early October 2021, the stock market has partially recovered, the S&P 500 index rose by 2.14 percent, the MSCI World stock index of developed countries - by 1.33 percent. The strengthening of the USD has stalled, supporting the gold price, which is up 1.67 percent since the beginning of the month. As of October 11, the investment income of the National Fund since the beginning of the month amounted to $250 million,” Moldabekova added.
