2000-01-17 Kazak Politics & MacroEconomics
Kazakhstan Weekly
Politics & Macro Economics
Monday January 17, 2000
Tenge Drops 64.6% in 1999
The exchange rate of Kazakhstan’s national currency, the tenge, dropped 64.6% in 1999 (10.7% in 1998) to 138.25 tenge/USD 1 by the end of the year, the National Bank (NB) of Kazakhstan’s Chairman, Grigory Marchenko, said at a press conference. The tenge suffered its worst drop in value (30.3%) after it was allowed to float freely against the U.S. dollar on 5 April 1999. The exchange rate was 88.3 tenge/USD 1 at the time. Marchenko said that in the following months the soft decline of the tenge was the result of a relative currency exchange balance.