AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakhstan has no plans to seek International Monetary Fund financing despite a drop in government revenues caused by the oil price crash, National Economy Minister Yerbolat Dossayev told Reuters on Friday.

"No, we are not (in talks with the Fund) and we do not plan any," Dosayev told reporters, when asked if the Central Asian oil exporter could follow the example of Azerbaijan, which has already started such negotiations.

The Kazakh tenge has lost nearly half of its value against the dollar since last August when the authorities switched to a floating exchange rate.

The government said this month it may have to cut public spending this year as well as its 2016 economic growth outlook as the price of crude has fallen below $40 per dollar, on which the budget was based.

But Kazakhstan has about $64 billion in its state oil fund and plans to tap it for about $8 billion this year. The former Soviet republic repaid its debt to the IMF in 2000 and has since never borrowed from the Fund.

Asked how the government would offset its declining oil revenues, Dosayev said on Friday: "With structural reforms". He did not elaborate.