The Kazakh central bank sold $489.4mn from its $62bn rainy day oil fund, the National Fund, on Kazakhstan’s domestic market in January for the purpose of financing the state budget, the regulator said on February 5.
The announcement marks the first time ever that the central bank has disclosed a monthly currency sales figure as regards the sovereign fund, but the nation is known to tap into the fund routinely for financing government spending. It is also believed by some observers that the central bank uses unofficial currency sales from the fund to support and manipulate the national currency, the tenge, without officially reporting any interventions.
The central bank also transferred a total of KZT575bn (€1.38bn) from a tenge account of the rainy day fund to the budget last month, it added.
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