Kazakhstan urges Russia, Belarus to coordinate currency policies
08:25, 20 April 2011
ALMATY. April 20. KAZINFORM Kazakhstan urged Russia and Belarus to align currency policies between the three members of a customs union and avoid "sharp, unilateral" devaluations.
"If we move toward a joint economic space with Russia and Belarus, we need to form coherent currency policies," Kazakh central bank Governor Grigori Marchenko told reporters in Almaty yesterday. The central Asian nation was forced to weaken the tenge twice in the past 16 years "not for domestic reasons but as a result of sharp devaluations in neighboring countries."
The three former Soviet republics entered a customs union in July and plan to form common economic space by next year. The adoption of a joint currency would be the "next logical step" after creating a common market, Igor Shuvalov, a Russian first deputy prime minister, said last year, Kazinform cites Nariman Gizitdinov, Bloomberg.
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