Kazakhstan’s gold and foreign exchange reserves rose by $1.8 billion in August to $36.8 billion as of September 1, Erbolat Dossayev,  the national bank’s chairman, said.

He said that gross international reserves, including the assets of the National Fund, amounted to $93.7 billion, having increased by $1.8 billion over the month.

The National Fund’s currency assets rose to $56.9 billion as of September 1. The Fund sold $845 million in August on the domestic currency market to order to make regular transfers to the state budget.

The oil-exporting Central Asian country relies on its rainy-day fund to fill the budget gaps, although plans to reduce the transfer from the fund to the state budget to 2.4 trillion tenge in 2022 from this year’s 2.7 trillion tenge.