National Fund of Kazakhstan loses money

Published February 8, 2022 23:40

In 2021, the National Fund of Kazakhstan’s assets decreased to $55.3 billion as the authorities withdrew $10.4 billion and put back just $6.2 billion, according to Galymzhan Pirmatov, the new head of the National Bank.

As the official reported to the government, despite volatility on the markets the National Fund was able to get a yield of 4.2% ($2.3 billion) last year.

This year the National Bank is going to shift to a well-balanced strategy of assets allocation as well as introduce a new protective mechanism to minimize possible losses because of stock market fluctuations, said Pirmatov.

Last year the country’s gold reserves lost $1.3 billion and dropped to $34 billion in total. This decrease was driven by the withdrawal of about $1.2 billion of foreign currency to serve the state debt, support currency interventions and other operations by the government. At the end of 2021, the bank reported gross international reserves of about $89.7 billion (a decrease of $4.7 billion).

In December of the year, the National Bank increased its assets by $404 million while its gold reserves plunged by $1.1 billion.