Kazakh tenge’s rate up since early 2017

By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

The rate of Kazakhstan's national currency, the tenge, increased from 340 tenges per dollar in early 2017 to 312.76 tenges per dollar as of March 1, according to Kazakh National Bank.

The lowest tenge rate since the beginning of 2017 was recorded on January 22 when the rate of Kazakh national currency dropped to 383.9 tenges per dollar. The highest rate of 311.49 tenges per dollar was on February 25-27.

Kazakh currency is rising despite no support from the National Bank , as the bank has not carried out any intervention in the currency exchange market to maintain or weaken tenge rate since September 2016.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s state budget plan envisages an average rate of 330 tenges per dollar in 2017. The forecast was revised in February.

In November 2016, Kazakhstan expected the average rate to reach 360 tenges per dollar in 2017.

In the revised budget plan the government also upgraded its forecast average oil price for 2017 from $35 per barrel to $50 per barrel.

Besides, the share of foreign currency deposits in the deposit market continued to decline, Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Daniyar Akishev said addressing at a briefing.

He said that according to the results of January 2017 the share of deposits in foreign currency reached 53 percent. In the structure of individuals' deposits share of deposits in foreign currency decreased to 60.2 percent, legal entities - to 47.3 percent.

In tote, the volume of deposits amounted to 17.5 trillion tenge.

The figures for loans speak for the de-dollarization of the economy, said Akishev.

Inflation in Kazakhstan in January-February 2017 amounted to 1.8 percent, according to the Committee on Statistics of the Ministry of National Economy.

The Kazakh National Bank forecasts inflation rate in the country to decrease to 6.5-7 percent in 2017, and to begin to smoothly enter the target range of 5-7 percent in 2018.

The National Bank also forecasts that economic growth in Kazakhstan will accelerate to 2.2 percent in 2017 and to 4.7 percent for the nine months of 2018.