Almost all currency exchange offices in Kazakhstan were closed on Aug 19. According to EADaily, the key reason is the slump of Kazakhstani Tenge (KZT) to 198 KZT per 1 USD, which is the bottom of the Kazakh Central Bank’s trading range.
As compared with Aug 18, on Aug 19, KZT fell by 5% in big Kazakh cities.
Kazkommertsbank fixed the buying and selling rates at 195.54 KZT/1 USD and 198.67 KZT/1 USD, respectively. In the Kazakh subsidiary of the Russian Sberbank, the rates were 196/$1 and 198/$1, in the National Bank 195.62/$1 and 197.49/$1, in currency exchange offices of Almaty, Astana and some other cities 196/$1 and 198/$1, respectively.
In the meantime, on the cash market EUR is rising: on Aug 19, its buying and selling rates were 216.7 KZT per 1 EUR and 19.65 KZT per 1 EUR, respectively.
People are actively buying foreign currency as they fear that the falls of RUR and CNY will cause a slump of KZT. In some cities, currency exchange offices are closed.
In Kazakhstan, the maximum gap between the buying and selling rates for USD is 2 KZT. For EUR it is 3 KZT. For the moment, KZT’s exchange band against USD is 170-198. Following the fall of RUR and oil prices, experts warned that KZT might also fall. Some of them expected a fall after the presidential election in Apr. But once winning the race, Nursultan Nazarbayev said he has no such plans.
