Kazakhstan’s under-pressure tenge lost more than a quarter of its value on Thursday after the oil producing central Asian nation, hit by a sharp fall in world crude prices, introduced a freely floating exchange rate for the currency. Acting against a backdrop of devaluation and depreciation in the currencies of some of its major trading partners and rivals, Kazakhstan’s government and central bank said the country’s economic policy would henceforth be based on inflation targeting. “This is not a devaluation, this is a transition to a freely floating rate when the market itself determines a balanced exchange rate on the basis of demand and offer,” central bank Governor Kairat Kelimbetov told a news conference broadcast from the capital Astana. The official tenge rate tumbled by 26.2 percent to 255.26 per dollar on the Kazakhstan […]