At the press conference on January 17, National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov spoke about a measure that "will be aimed at reducing inflationary pressure and maintaining macroeconomic stability."
"The National Bank, within the framework of its activities, exercises the state's priority right to purchase gold from domestic gold mining enterprises. This measure is aimed at strengthening international reserves and the economy's resilience to external shocks. Such a policy has proven successful, allowing us to increase the volume of reserves to $45.8 billion, including gold reserves to $23.8 billion. However, these operations are financed through tenge emissions, thereby increasing the amount of money in the economy, which leads to an excess over the commodity mass and undoubtedly affects inflation," said the head of the National Bank.
The speaker noted that throughout 2024, the National Bank has been "actively discussing" the transition to monetary neutrality regarding gold purchases in order to "minimize such an effect."
"Taking into account these discussions and analyses, we are starting to sell dollars as part of mirroring operations related to gold purchases," Suleimenov stated. "I want to emphasize that these operations are not currency interventions. Their main goal is to reduce the excess amount of money in the economy and achieve a targeted inflation rate of 5%. At the same time, these measures will create additional currency supply in the domestic market, which will also contribute to the balance of the internal currency market."