A little bit about Kazakhstan....

According to the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan
the main purpose of the National Bank of Kazakhstan is
to stabilise the price level in country. Even if it was a big
pressure to the exchange rate of tenge (national currency)
the National Bank was trying to stabilise the exchange rate
and keep it as 117-123 tenge per US dollar. It helped to
control economic and financial situation. However the
National bank should take into account gold reserves of
the country and also competiveness of the Kazakhstan
producers. That's why from 4th february 2009 the
National Bank of Kazakhstan sets the new exchange rate as
150 tenge per US dollar (+/-3%).
The main causes of this changes are:

• Decreasing in oil prices. Oil is 60% of all Kazakhstan exports.
• Devaluation of currencies of other countries. For example in the period of early 2008 and january of 2009 devaluation of national currencies per US dollar was in Russia 44%, Ukraine - 53%, UK - 38%, Eurozone - 13%, Brazil - 31%, Australia - 27% and in Canada - 26%. The level of devaluation os tenge is 23% which is less than average level in other countries.
• A lot of private banks have a government support so they can operate as usual.
• Maintaining of gold reserves of country. In the period of 2008-2009 the National bank has spent 6 billions US dollars to stabilise currency market and to control the exchange rate.