ASTANA (Interfax-Kazakhstan) — The government of Kazakhstan will recalculated the 2016-2018 budget based on the exchange rate of 300 tenge per $1, Minister of National Economy Yerbolat Dosayev told journalists on the sidelines of the Majilis meeting, the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament, in Astana on Tuesday. Current FOREX rate is 308.36/$.

According to the draft budget presented in September 2015, the government planned the budget deficit to decrease from 1.6% in 2016 to 1% in 2018. The revenue to the budget was said to amount to 6.595 tln tenge in 2016, 7.130 tln tenge in 2017 and 6.905 tln tenge in 2018. The expenditures were expected to come to 7.319 tln tenge in 2016, 7.731 tln tenge in 2017 and 7.457 tln tenge in 2018.

Kazakhstan switched to a free floating exchange rate for the Tenge on August 20, 2015 and the currency’s exchange rate against the U.S. dollar tumbled 26% to 255.26 tenge/$1 during the trading sessions on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE).

The minister also said that the GDP growth outlook was kept unchanged at 1.5% for 2015 and at 2.1% for 2016. “The inflation forecast is also kept unchanged at 6-8% for 2016, 6-8% for 2017 and 3-4% by 2020”, Dosayev said.

The oil production forecast for 2016 remains at 77 mln tonnes, according to the minister. “The exchange rate of 300 tenge per $1 was agreed with the National Bank,” Dosayev said.