A meeting chaired by the Head of State Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was held in Akorda to review the report on the performance of the National Bank for 2023.

The National Bank Governor Timur Suleimenov, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of National Economy Nurlan Baibazarov, Chairperson of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market Madina Abylkassymova, and Minister of Finance Madi Takiyev attended the meeting.

The President was informed on the results of implementation of monetary policy in 2023, measures to ensure financial stability, and the state of the gold and foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank and the National Fund assets.

The NBK noted more than twofold decrease in inflation, which dropped to 9.8% by the end of 2023. The base rate was reduced to 14.75%. Deposit dollarization ratio fell to 23.2% reaching a 26-year low. At the same time, gross international reserves of the National Bank reached $36 billion by the end of 2023, an increase of $0.9 billion, or 2.5% compared to end-2022. The assets of the National Fund increased by $4.3 billion, reaching $60 billion, while the return on assets amounted to 11.38%. The total volume of pension assets of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund under management of the National Bank totaled 17.8 trillion tenge by the end of 2023, having increased by 3.2 trillion tenge over the year. The return on pension assets was 10.1%, which exceeded inflation.

Furthermore, the President was informed about the course of implementation of the Digital Tenge pilot project and other significant initiatives in digitalization. In particular, in 2023, the Open API platform and the Anti-Fraud Center to combat financial fraud were introduced in pilot mode in collaboration with the financial market participants.

The President remarked that despite geopolitical instability, high global inflation and a decline in global trade, 2023 was generally positive for Kazakhstan. At the same time, it is necessary to continue work of the National Bank and the Government to ensure macroeconomic and financial stability of the country amid the current conditions in the world.

Following the meeting, the President assigned a number of tasks aimed at further enhancing the policy and development of the domestic financial market infrastructure.

Source: Akorda.kz