CA-NEWS (KZ) - President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev instructed the National Bank to maintain the optimal exchange rate of the national currency, the tenge, Tengrinews.kz reported.

"External conditions may cause currency devaluation of our trade partners, so the National Bank and the Government should track the situation to secure the optimum exchange rate of the tenge with a view of maintaining competitive ability of Kazkahstan’s exporters," Nazarbaev told at the governmental session on January 27.

The new wave of the global crisis could last for another 5-6 years, the President said in his State of the Nation Address.

The President instructed Umirzak Shukeev, Head of National Welfare Fund "Samruk-Kazyna", to optimize the headcount of ministries, regional governors’ offices … optimization.

"Shukeev has seen how many highly-paid penpushers are employed with companies that are part of the Samruk Kazyna Fund. The Vice Prime Minister is to come up with recommendations of how to optimize national companies and government-owned enterprises," the President said.

"For the recent five years the number of state-run enterprises has grown 1.5 times – from 4,000 to 6,000. Because the Finance Minister has been too generous when managing public funds. No suggestions have been made on how to save public funds. These enterprises employ 6 times more people than all public bodies – 600 000 people! Over half of the enterprises are loss-making. We need to drastically cut down the number of government-owned enterprises and optimize the structure of national companies by April 1. From the budget perspective, it’s important to cut down the headcount without using the relived resources to raise salaries for the other employees," Head of State said.