Kazakhstan national fund's assets exceed 10 trillion tenge

The assets of Kazakhstan national fund exceeded 10 trillion tenge ($67 billion) by the end of 2012, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Finance Minister Bolat Zhamishev as saying at the expanded meeting of Finance Ministry attended by Prime-Minister Serik Akhmetov. "As of the end of 2012 the funds of the National Fund were over 10 trillion tenge ($67 billion) net of investment profits. The share of undrawn balance in the overall expenses made 0.7 percent or 41.6 billion tenge ($277 million), which is 0.1 percent less than in 2011," Bolat Zhamishev said. He also spoke about Kazakhstan's state budget. Performance of the state budget in terms of revenues exceeded the planned amount by 1.5 percent in 2012. The budget expenses made 5.8 trillion tenge ($38.6 billion), which is 99.3 percent of the planned amount. 889.3 billion tenge ($5.9 billion) were transferred to regional budgets and 871.5 billion tenge ($5.8 billion) of them, or 98 percent, were spent in 2012. As for the VAT, the budget received 914.4 billion tenge ($6.1 billion), which is 3.1 percent more than the planned amount. Zhamishev noted that "if the budget was not updated in 2012, the performance would have made 91 percent". He said that the plan on individual income tax was exceeded by 6 percent and the social tax plan was exceeded by 4 percent. Compared to 2011, such incomes to the state budget increased by 62.3 billion tenge ($415.3 million) and 44.2 billion tenge ($295 million), correspondingly, which certifies to a positive trend in employment rate. By Baubek Konyrov