Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

The volume of international reserves of Kazakhstan in May 2018 increased by 0.16 percent compared to April, thus reaching a level of $ 90.356 billion, Kazinform reported.

The figure rose by 1.43 percent compared to late 2017.

According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the volume of Kazakhstan's gross international reserves in May decreased by 0.54 percent (from the beginning of this year it increased by 1.39 percent) making $ 31.172 billion, including the volume of net international reserves which decreased by 0.52 percent and totaled $ 30.67 billion.

The volume of assets of the National Fund of Kazakhstan amounted to $ 59.184 billion, showing an increase of 0.52 percent compared to April (1.46 percent more than in December 2017).

The volume of assets in freely convertible currency amounted to $ 17.814 billion, showing a decrease of 1.16 percent in the previous month (since December of last year - by 2.37 percent).

The volume of assets in gold amounted to $ 13.357 billion, thus showing an increase of 0.31 percent (6.88 percent more than in late 2017).

Earlier, Deputy Chairman of the Kazakh National Bank Alpysbai Akhmetov said that Kazakhstan’s gold and foreign exchange reserves have increased by 1.4 percent.

“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 on June 5.

International reserves are those foreign (external) highly liquid assets of country that are readily available to and controlled by monetary authorities (central bank) for meeting balance of payments financing needs, for intervention in exchange markets to affect the currency exchange rate. International reserves also can be used to maintain confidence in the national currency and serving as a basic for external borrowing.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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