Over the course of a month, from January 1 to February 1, 2025, the official exchange rate of the dollar dropped by 1.3% or 6.97 tenge, reaching 518.14 tenge. This marked the first recovery of the tenge's positions in the last four months, and it turned out to be quite significant. The national currency had been strengthening at comparable rates at the very beginning of 2024, when a clear trend for its appreciation was observed, writes Data Hub.
The tenge began to consistently depreciate in mid-May 2024.
“In September, this process can be said to have paused, but then it began to gain momentum with renewed vigor. As a result, the end of the year turned out to be generally unfavorable for the national currency, especially in November and December. Following these months, to smooth out strong fluctuations in the currency market, the National Bank had to conduct interventions. Interestingly, this was the first time since spring 2022. Nevertheless, the positions of the tenge continued to deteriorate in January. By mid-month, a new historical anti-record was set at 530.24 tenge. However, this moment also became a turning point. Since then, the dollar exchange rate began to retreat towards lower December values,” analysts note.
Data Hub indicates that “the NBRK itself explained the weakening of the national currency by the speculative demand for dollars along with the influence of external factors: the global strengthening of the dollar, ongoing geopolitical tensions, and price volatility of key export goods.” According to the monetary regulator's widespread information, several measures helped stabilize the tenge's exchange rate.
In addition to interventions, these measures included, according to Data Hub: notifications of intentions to sell dollars from gold exports; mandatory sale of 50% of foreign exchange earnings from KGS; inspections in 12 financial organizations; strengthening compliance with currency operations; regulating spreads in exchange offices; and shortening the reporting period for banks on currency operations.
“In a statement published today, the National Bank does not specify whether interventions were conducted specifically in January. Only the following information is available. In the past month, the NBRK sold 850 million dollars from the National Fund to ensure transfers to the republican budget and to finance the construction of the Taldykorgan-Usharal main gas pipeline. At the same time, the purchase of foreign currency to support the currency share of pension assets of the ENPF was not conducted,” analysts noted.
In February, foreign currency sales to ensure transfers to the RB are expected to be between 550 million and 650 million dollars. The National Bank plans to sell foreign currency equivalent to about 250 billion tenge, obtained from the sale of gold previously purchased from domestic gold mining companies. The NBRK still does not plan to purchase foreign currency for the ENPF.
It was previously reported that to mirror the purchases of refined gold in the fourth quarter of 2024, the National Bank will carry out foreign currency sales totaling around 750 billion tenge during the first quarter of 2025.
The President, in an interview with the republican newspaper "Ana tіlі," stated that Kazakhstan is integrated into the global economy, and therefore the tenge is influenced by external factors. The strengthening dollar puts pressure on the currencies of developing countries, and the tenge has held its positions for quite some time.