Kazakhstan's central bank outlines FX market plans for November

Kazakhstan's National Bank has published an update on the foreign exchange market, covering its October operations and plans for November. In October, the tenge fell 3% to 453.77 per US dollar. Average daily trading volume on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange dropped from $474 million to $397 million, while total volume reached $8.4 billion.

According to the bank, about 302 billion tenge was sterilized in October as part of operations mirroring gold purchases. In November, it expects to sell currency equivalent to 302 billion tenge for this purpose. To finance requests from the government, the bank bought $910 million from the National Fund, and said these amounts will be sold on the domestic market while observing market neutrality. No currency interventions were carried out in October.

As investment manager of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund, the bank bought $568 million in foreign currency on the exchange in October, about 7% of total trading volume. Short-term tenge dynamics will depend on market expectations, quarterly tax payments, global markets and geopolitical developments. The bank said it will continue its flexible exchange rate regime and full disclosure of operations.