OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his Central Bank chief, Grigory Marchenko. Mr Marchenko had been head of Kazakhstan’s central bank since 2009. Mr Nazrarbayev didn’t give a clear reason for sacking Mr Marchenko. Former economy minister Kairat Kelimbetov was named as the new Central Bank chief.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
AUG. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Keen to strengthen control over the tenge, the Kazakh Central Bank switched from managing the value of its national currency against the dollar to using an aggregated basket of currencies.
The US dollar will still make up 70% of the new basket, Kazakh Central Bank chief Grigory Marchenko said, but the euro will also make up 20% and the Russian rouble 10%.
This system is more in line with a currency basket used by the Russian Central Bank to determine the value of the rouble.
In July, the Central Bank came under pressure to devalue the tenge after it dropped to 154 to the dollar. Since then it has rebounded to about 152 tenge to the dollar.
This currency basket will give the Kazakh Central Bank more room to intervene in the markets to defend the value of its currency. It scrapped a managed corridor value for the tenge in March 2011.
Two years earlier, in February 2009 during the global financial crisis, the Kazakh Central Bank devalued the tenge by 21%.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
JUNE 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bloomberg News reported that Austrian prosecutors have accused nine bankers in Austria of bribing foreign bankers, including Adib Mayaleh, head of the Azerbaijani Central Bank. Mr Mayaleh denied he had taken a bribe. He has never been charged with corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
MARCH 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The governor of Kazakhstan’s Central Bank, Grigori Marchenko, called for the government to grant it full independence, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 128, published on March 22 2013)
JAN. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh central bank chief, Grigory Marchenko, estimated GDP growth for Kazakhstan in 2012 at 6%. This is slower economic growth than in 2011 but in a worsening global economic climate it also underlines the potential of Kazakhstan’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
JULY 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a scene reminiscent of Soviet times, several central bankers in Turkmenistan admitted during a broadcast on state television that they had stolen millions of dollars, news agencies reported. The bankers were given lengthy prison sentences.
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(News report from Issue No. 51, published on Aug. 2 2011)
MAY 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia and the other former Soviet states endorsed current Kazakh Central Bank chief, Grigory Marchenko, to replace Dominique Strauss-Khan as head of the IMF. The IMF chief has traditionally been a European but countries from outside Europe are pressurising the IMF to pick an outsider.
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(News report from Issue No. 41, published on May 24 2011)
FEB. 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh Central Bank scrapped a two-year valuation corridor for the tenge in favour of a managed float. Kazakhstan introduced a 145-155 tenge/$1 corridor in Feb. 2009 after it devalued the tenge by 18% during the global financial crisis. Rising oil, grain and metals prices have pushed up the value of the tenge.
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(News report from Issue No. 29, published on Feb. 28 2011)
