National Bank lowers its base rate to 12.5%
ASTANA. KAZINFORM The National Bank of Kazakhstan has decided to lower its base rate from 13% to 12.5%, according to chief banker of the country Daniyar Akishev.
In his words, the base rate was lowered due to positive dynamics of the foreign and internal market parameters. “World oil prices stabilized at $45-50 per barrel, and we observe reduction in the volatility of exchange rates in trade partner countries, primarily, in the Russian Federation,” said D.Akishev.
He also pointed out reduction of negative inflation and devaluation expectations at the domestic market. Positive trends are observed in real sector of economy. In August 2016, short-term economic indicator characterizing development tendencies of the basic sectors of economy has risen by 0.2% in per year terms. Improvement is observed nearly in all the sectors (except for mining industry due to oil production decrease). Growth of investments in fixed capital reached 4.8% since January 2016.
As the chief banker of Kazakhstan emphasized, the macro-economic indicators show gradual adaptation of the country’s economy to the changes in external conditions and exchange rate volatility.
“In whole, the situation at the financial market and in economy is quite favorable now compared to the previous period of adopting decisions on the base rate. However, the National Bank cannot but consider possible changes of the situation which make us to take a careful and balanced approach to change the base rate. In this regard, the National Bank views the present base rate as the most acceptable one,” he added.
The National Bank does not rule out further reduction of base rate in case of slowdown of inflation processes, stable growth of tenge deposits and annual inflation reduction.