In its monthly FX market update for July, the Kazakh central bank stated it sold USD 125.6 mln in direct FX interventions (on July 30), as well as USD 700 mln of hard currency sales from the oil fund, and USD 540 mln in sterilization operations to offset domestic gold purchases. During July, the central bank also bought around USD 32 mln for the state pension fund. The NBK has also announced it plans to sell USD 400-500 mln from the oil fund in August, as well as USD 540 mln in gold sterilization, with no plans to buy FX for the pension fund. This would mean net FX sales in August are set to reduce to around USD 1 bln in monthly terms.