NBK OF KAZAKHSTAN - TENGE IS OVERVALUED, ITS DECLINE TO KZT144/$1 (NOW AT KZT142.7/$1) IS DESIRABLE

/IRBIS, Nov.7, 00/ - REUTERS informs, with the reference to the chairman of the National Bank, Grigorii Marchenko, that it believes the tenge is overvalued somewhat, and intends to convey its estimates to the participants of financial market. Today he said that they had several discussions on this topic and that the tenge was overvalued for it to maintain the balance on the market, and that equilibrium exchange rate should be around at KZT144 per dollar. It is said that these are only the estimates and the wishes of the National Bank, and that the Bank will not take any measures to lower the exchange rate. He says that the situation will not change if the exporters keep selling their earnings on domestic market. He said that the switch had to be made towards indirect regulation mechanisms and it had been their first attempt to have a moral influence on the market. Although, it does not mean that we will start buying everything furiously till the exchange rate reaches KZT144 per dollar, that is if the market reacts then it will, if not then we will live like we did before, he added. The exchange rate of the tenge is said to remain stable on the country's currency market since April of this year. By early November it was at KZT142.58 per U.S. dollar compared with KZT142.40 in April. It is said that the National Bank was buying excess of dollars flowing onto the domestic market due to exports exceeding imports to prevent the tenge from firming too much. Marchenko said that gold and hard currency reserves had doubled within a year at $2.3 bln as of November 1. Today weighted average rate of the tenge to the U.S. dollar fell down to KZT142.89 from KZT142.81 yesterday, and the National Bank had not been participating in the trades for a several days already.