ASTANA, Kazakhstan, September 13. Kazakh National Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves have decreased by 4.3 percent since the beginning of this year, to $33.6 billion due to the conversion of funds into government foreign currency accounts in order to pay off the national debt, said Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Timur Suleymenov during a government meeting, Trend reports.
"Despite the weakening in August, the tenge exchange rate has strengthened by 0.7 percent since the beginning of the year to 459.39 tenge per dollar. The tenge weakened by 3 percent in August due to the global strengthening of the US dollar," he added.
According to him, tenge was supported by sales of currency from the National Fund as part of ensuring a transfer to the republican budget. In August they amounted to $770 million. Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (UAPF) currency purchases in August amounted to $240 million.
He added that gross international reserves at the end of August this year amounted to $93.5 billion.
As Suleymenov noted, assets of the National Fund have increased since the beginning of this year by 7.5 percent or $4.2 billion, to $59.9 billion. The main growth was due to investment income of 6.10 percent or $3.4 billion since the beginning of this year.
Transfers from the National Fund to the republican budget amounted to 2.9 trillion tenge (about $6.28 million). To implement them, the National Fund's foreign currency assets were sold for $4.9 billion. Total revenues to the fund since the beginning of the year amounted to 3.3 trillion tenge (about $7.15 million).
UAPF's pension assets demonstrate positive dynamics. Since the beginning of this year, they have increased by 14.6 percent, to 16.8 trillion tenge (about $36.4 billion). Pension contributions amounted to 1.4 trillion tenge (about $3.03 billion), and early withdrawals amounted to 164.8 billion tenge (about $357 million).