National Fund of Kazakhstan continues shrinking

In April, the National Fund of Kazakhstan shrank by an additional $1.1 billion from $64.9 billion to $64.4 billion, the Ministry of Finance’s data showed. 

Overall, the National Fund has shrunk by $1.0 billion since the beginning of the year when the fund had $65.5 billion in it. In January, it shrank by $299 million before increasing by $265 million in February and then shrinking again by $597 million in March.

Over the past four months, the National Fund received $3.9 billion, including $676 million in April. Almost all this money was tax payments from the oil industry. 

From January to the end of April, the National Fund spent more money than it received – $4.3 billion, including $1.1 in April. About $3.3 billion was allocated to guaranteed transfers ($1.1 billion in April), $926 million for targeted transfers (zero in April) and $11.2 million for the fund’s expenditures ($8 million in April). 

Given that the law on the state budget of Kazakhstan for 2024-2026 reserves $4.5 billion for guaranteed transfers this year, over the past four months the fund spent three quarters ($3.3 billion) of the entire sum allocated to such budget transfers in 2024.

The government of Kazakhstan used to spend targeted transfers from the National Fund to finance current budget spending. However, in September 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed an edict requiring targeted transfers of the fund to be spent only for financing the development of critical infrastructure and implementation of national projects.

Last year, the National Fund reported a $5.1 billion increase from $60.1 billion to $65.5 billion. All in all, the fund received $14.4 billion and spent $9 billion in 2023.