ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 1. Kazakhstan's tenge exchange rate weakened by 0.5 percent to 474.15 tenge per $1 in July 2024, Trend reports, citing the National Bank of Kazakhstan.
Sales of foreign currency to ensure transfers from the National Fund to channel funds to the Republican budget amounted to $506 million in July 2024.
The National Fund's share of sales amounted to 14 percent of the total trading volume, or no more than $23 million per day.
The National Bank kept buying foreign currency at exchange trading in July, totaling $275 million, or roughly 7 percent of the total market volume, in order to keep the foreign exchange share of pension assets of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (UAPF) at the level of 30 percent.
As part of the implementation of the Government's decision to purchase shares of Kazatomprom into the National Fund, the National Bank carried out conversion by selling part of the foreign currency assets of the National Fund into the gold and foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank. To maintain market neutrality and mirror this operation on the foreign exchange market, the National Bank began evenly selling the acquired volume in mid-July.
Thus, in July, the volume of sales from the gold and foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank within the framework of this operation amounted to $115 million; in August 2024, the sale of currency from the gold and foreign exchange reserves is expected in the amount of $230–$250 million.
According to preliminary forecast requests from the Government for the allocation of transfers to the republican budget, in August 2024, the National Bank expects the sale of currency from the National Fund in the amount of $500–$600 million.
The purchase of foreign currency to maintain the foreign currency share of the UAPF pension assets in August 2024 is expected to range from $200 to $250 million.
