National Bank of Kazakhstan: tenge weakens 3% against dollar in October

The National Bank of Kazakhstan reported that the tenge weakened by 3% over October, with the dollar settling at 453.77 tenge. The bank said it did not carry out any foreign exchange interventions during the month.

The bank said other factors could have indirectly influenced the exchange rate. Under operations mirroring gold purchases, about 302 billion tenge was sterilised in October, meaning the bank sold currency on the domestic market, which could support the tenge. A similar 302 billion tenge sale is planned for November.

In October the bank also bought $910 million from the National Fund for sale on the domestic market, which could support the tenge by increasing dollar supply. However, it bought $568 million in foreign currency to maintain the foreign currency share of pension assets of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund, which could add pressure on the tenge. On the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, average daily FX trading volume was $397 million in October, reaching $8.4 billion for the month.