AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakhstan is spending billions of dollars of its reserves to keep devaluation of its currency gradual and reduce inflationary risks of the sort thrown up in Russia by the rouble's slide, Reuters reported citing analysts and former Kazakh central bank officials.

Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest economy, is closely tied to Russia through trade and, like other ex-Soviet states, has been feeling the pain of the crisis which has driven the rouble down 50 percent against the dollar since the start of 2014.

The Kazakh National Bank devalued the tenge currency by 19 percent last February to curb speculative pressure on the forex market, save reserves and boost economic growth by supporting exporters.

But the devaluation shocked the nation of 17 million, and National Bank Governor Kairat Kelimbetov promised then that the tenge would not be sharply devalued for at least three years.

The bank is now spending billions of dollars from its gold and foreign currency reserves, analysts and former central bank officials say, although this is not reflected in official statistics.

They said the central bank is using currency swaps with commercial banks which flatter the currency reserve figures.

The central bank declined to disclose the volume of its interventions on the forex market or the size of its currency swaps. It did not comment on what future trading range it saw for the tenge.

Aivar Baikenov, head of research at Kazakh investment company Asyl Invest, said he estimated the bank had spent more than $10 billion last year to support the tenge rate.

"At the moment, they actively use currency swaps, which are then counted in the gold and hard currency reserves," he said.

Baikenov estimated last year's volume of currency swaps at more than $7 billion and said this year it had surged to around $5 billion.