On 16 November, the Finance Ministry held its 90^th auction of 6-month T-bills. The average yield rose to 22.27%. The auction was oversubscribed 1.7 times and the placed volume increased 15 times to KZT 599m (USD 7.2m) compared with the previous auction a week ago.

The latest auction of 3-month T-bills on 17 November was 2.6 times oversubscribed. However, the Finance Ministry chose not to increase the average yield and confined itself to KZT 468.6m (USD 5.69m), which did not much exceed the planned KZT 400m.

As a result of the two auctions, the Finance Ministry raised KZT 1,068.6m (some USD 13m). At the same time, the repayment of issues due on 16-20 November totalled KZT 3.12bn (about USD 38m).

Over the first 10 months of 1998, the Finance Ministry has placed KZT 54.6bn (about USD 670m) in the Kazakhstani T-bills market. Of this amount, non-residents bought papers worth KZT 4.9bn (USD 60m) or just 8.97% of the total placed volume. Currently, non-residents hold T-bills to the amount of KZT 1.9bn, which makes up 6.5% of the total sum in circulation. According to a recent Finance Ministry press release, "the impact of the economic crisis in Southeast Asia and Russia is still being felt. Non-residents are cautious about the Kazakhstani government's securities market." (Reuters)