Kazakhstan's domestic debt on government securities (GS) has reached a historic high, exceeding the pre-devaluation level, Tengrinews reports citing the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE).
Kazakhstan's domestic debt on government securities (GS) has reached a historic high, exceeding the pre-devaluation level, Tengrinews reports citing the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE).
According to KASE, as of October 24 Kazakhstan’s government debt, issued in the form of government securities, reached 4.31 trillion tenge or $23.672 billion. The total market value of the Kazakhstan government bonds traded on KASE as of the same date exceeded $24.2 billion.
A historical maximum on government debt was reached in February 2014. On February 3 it was reported that the government debt equaled to 23.641 billion (about 3.6 trillion tenge). However, this was actually a smaller sum in tenge, since the National Bank of Kazakhstan announced a nearly 20% devaluation of the tenge, Kazakhstan's national currency, on February 11.
After the National Bank changed the tenge exchange rate, Kazakhstan’s domestic debt fell by about 20 percent. Since payments on government bonds are made in tenge, the public debt in tenge stayed the same but fell in dollar value.
By Dinara Urazova