Kazakhstan has banned the export of hard currency in amounts worth more than $10,000, as well as gold and silver bullion, as it attempts to stabilize a national currency battered by the knock-on effect of international sanctions against its main trading partner, Russia. The decree approved by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on March 14 in effect nullifies one important provision of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union trading bloc, which allows in principle for the free movement of capital. In a briefing on this provision, Finance Minister Yerulan Zhamaubayev told reporters that customs officials would be replaced by representatives of the border services, who will inspect people crossing state borders for compliance. There has been insistent but not well-documented chatter among financial market insiders across Central Asia of vast volumes of hard currency flowing out of the region toward Russia, and of commensurately large amounts of rubles flowing in the opposite […]