Kazakhstan’s international reserves increase
By Kamila Aliyeva
Kazakhstan’s gold and foreign exchange reserves have increased by 1.4 percent.
This was stated by Deputy Chairman of the Kazakh National Bank Alpysbai Akhmetov when he reported to the Senate of the Parliament on the state of the gold and currency reserves of the country at an expanded meeting of the Finance and Budget Committee, Kazinform reported.
“Over five months of this year, the National Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves, according to preliminary data, increased by 1.4 percent. The international reserves of the country in aggregate, including the National Fund assets reached $90.4 billion,” he said.
Excess liquidity, which remains on the money market, is withdrawn primarily by issuing notes of the National Bank in order to limit inflationary pressures, according to Akhmetov.
“Given that notes of the National Bank are short-term, as credit activity intensifies, a fairly rapid flow of liquidity into loans to the population and business is possible,” he added.
The deputy chairman went on to say that banks in Kazakhstan have increased the issuance of loans by more than a quarter since the beginning of the year.
“The issuance of new loans in January-April increased by 27 percent or 814 billion tenge compared to the same period last year. As a result, the loan portfolio of the bank grew by 12.1 percent in annual terms, unless taking into account the impact of the National Bank's measures of the last year related to the recovery of the banking sector,” he said.
Akhmetov specified that the National Bank is implementing a number of initiatives to ensure long-term crediting. So, at the legislative level, it is expected to introduce tools that extend the funding period for banks.
"The introduction of savings deposits will allow banks to have a longer and more predictable funding. The banks will receive about 400 billion tenge for five years in the framework of the launched program investments of ENPF [Unified Accumulative Pension Fund] funds in bank bonds. It is assumed that parity participation of market players is mandatory to increase such funding. In the coming years, 1.2 trillion tenge of loans by major banks are envisaged for the banks participating in the recovery program. To date, 865 billion tenge has been refinanced, of which new loans amounting to 170 billion tenge have been issued,” the deputy head of the National Bank said.
In addition, banks will receive 200 billion tenge within the framework of the “7-20-25” program in the near future, he noted. In the future, the amount will reach 1 trillion tenge, which will double the current volume of the mortgage portfolio of banks to 2 trillion tenge.
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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva
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