Foreign Exchange Market  

(September, 2007) 

In the first ten days of September, the situation in the foreign exchange market remained unchanged, but starting from the second ten day week of the month, the USD exchange rate began to rapidly decrease due to the influence of excess supply of foreign currency in the domestic market and to the decline of USD exchange rate compared with major currencies in external markets. 

On the whole for the month, the weighed average USD exchange rate decreased by 2.7 per cent in the inter-bank currency auctions, and made 36.7924 KGS/USD as of the late September. The USD accounting exchange rate decreased by 2.4 per cent and made 36.8994 KGS/USD. 

The total volume of transactions in the currency auctions decreased by 34.3 per cent in the reporting month compared to the previous month, and made USD 48.3 Million. The decline was caused both by a considerable decrease in the volume of National Bank transactions by 81.8 per cent, making USD 8.35 Million for the month; USD 5.35 Million of this amount was purchased by the NBKR, and USD 3.0 Million were sold. In addition to the transactions with non-cash US dollars, the NBKR sold USD 3.0 Million in cash in September and cashed USD 2.5 Million. At the same time, in September the volume of inter-bank transactions in the currency auctions increased by 44.1 per cent and made USD 39.9 Million.  

In September, the USD exchange rate in exchange offices started to decline in the beginning of the month and decreased faster than in the currency auctions. On the whole for the month, the USD selling rate in exchange offices decreased by 4.9 per cent to make 36.2242 KGS/USD. At the same time, in average for the month, it was by 0.09 KGS higher than the weighed average rate in the inter-bank currency auctions. A daily average fluctuation of USD selling in exchange offices increased from 0.03 per cent to 0.17 per cent, and the average margin on the USD sales transactions also increased from 0.3 to 0.4 per cent. 

The Euro exchange rate dynamics in exchange offices, as usual, was formed under the influence of its variations in external markets. In the first twenty days of September, the exchange rate generally increased following the trend in the world markets, but in the last ten days of the month its dynamic changed to decrease. On the whole for the month, the EUR selling rate in exchange offices increased by 0.7 per cent and made 52.136 KGS/EUR as of the late month. Daily average fluctuation of EUR selling rate decreased in September from 0.16 per cent to 0.06 per cent, and the average margin on sales transactions remained at the level of 0.49 per cent. 

The selling rate of Russian rouble in exchange offices generally increased in the first ten day week of September; then, after a period of slight variations in the last ten days of the month, its dynamic changed to decrease. On the whole for the month, it decreased by 0.5 per cent and made 1.4626 KGS/RUR as of the late September. Daily average fluctuation of the RUR selling rate decreased from 0.12 per cent to 0.10 per cent; the average margin increased from 0.66 per cent to 0.71 per cent. 

The selling rate of Kazakh tenge in exchange offices was notably increasing during the first half of the reporting month, and the decrease followed in the second half of the month. On the whole for September, the KZT selling rate in exchange offices increased by 1.5 per cent and amounted to 0.3 KGS/KZT as of the late month. At the same time, the daily average fluctuation of the KZT exchange rate increased from 0.19 per cent to 0.32 per cent, and the average margin for the month remained at the level of 0.9 per cent. 

The total volume of transactions for currency sales in exchange offices decreased in September by 1.6 per cent and made KGS 2,231.3 Million. At the same time, there was a decrease in the volume of transactions with RUR, KZT and other currencies, and an increase in the volume of transactions with USD and EUR. As a result, the shares of transactions with RUR and KZT were down to 11.9 per cent and 11.8 per cent, correspondingly, and with USD and EUR the shares were up to 65.7 per cent and 10.0 per cent, correspondingly. The share of transactions with other currencies in the structure of exchange rate transactions decreased to 0.5 per cent.