Chairman of the National Bank Timur Suleimenov at a briefing explained the degree of independence of the financial regulator from the government, reports the website infohub.kz.
Suleimenov emphasized that the powers of the National Bank are enshrined in the country's legislation. "There is an article in the law 'On the National Bank' that clearly states that the National Bank is independent in implementing monetary policy. But there is also Article 24, which says that the National Bank, in fulfilling its goals and objectives, takes into account the government's economic growth policy as long as it does not interfere with its main function. This is the legislative principle we adhere to," he said.
According to him, this continues as long as economic growth targets do not come into direct conflict with inflation reduction goals. "Economic growth is a task for every state body, not only the National Bank or the government. Every state body must ensure economic growth and development. Therefore, the law provides an answer to this question. In practice, we implement it exactly that way," he explained.
The head of the National Bank also explained the revision of the inflation forecast. "Of course, we would like to achieve the target earlier (reducing inflation to a single-digit figure - ed.), but we see that there are inevitable things such as tariff increases, rising fuel prices, and a number of other reforms and innovations that the government is largely forced to implement because they were previously postponed. Based on this, it would probably be wrong to set earlier deadlines and then come back to you and say: 'Well, we couldn't do it.' We set a forecast that is absolutely calculated using econometric models and see that, according to it, this will happen in 2028. Although we would certainly like it earlier. But to take into account the interests of both economic growth and the well-being of the population, we must move along such a trajectory," he explained.