International reserves decreased - National Bank of Kazakhstan

Gross international reserves decreased by 8.7% to USD 32.3 billion. Net international reserves reduced by 8.8% to USD 31.8 billion. Purchase of currency at the domestic currency market, currency revenues on the Governmental accounts in the National Bank have been neutralized by operations on updating of assets of the National Fund from the accounts of foreign exchange reserves. As a result, net foreign currency reserves (hard currency) in March of this year decreased by 9.9%. Gold assets decreased by 2.8% as a result of the operations and decrease of its price on world markets.

In March this year of the country's international reserves as a whole, including the National Fund's assets in foreign currency decreased by 2.6% to USD 80.6 billion. The monetary base shrank by 5.4% and amounted to KZT 3 282.7 billion. The narrow monetary base, i. e the monetary base, excluding term deposits of second-tier banks, shrank by 10.9% to KZT 2 927.9 billion.

The money multiplier increased from 2.84 in January 2012 up to 2.86 in February 2012 due to higher growth of money supply compared with the dynamics of the monetary base.