Students of S. Toraighyrov Pavlodar State University became the winners of the large-scale Unicon Olympiad in Economics, which was held among all regions of Kazakhstan.

A half million tenges and the first place of the competition were awarded to Dinara Utegenova, Lenura Makhatova and Sabina Sadenova. 

The topic of discussion offered to the participants was “What is better for Kazakhstan: the floating or fixed exchange rate of the dollar to the tenge?” 

It should be noted that the floating exchange rate was looked upon with favor by all finalists of the contest. The main argument in support of this exchange rate policy was that the reserves of the National Bank would be saved and Kazakhstan would be motivated to diversify its economy. 

“The fixed exchange rate brings only short-term profits, but we are interested in long-term ones. There is no sense in politicizing the issue. This is our honest opinion, the opinion of economists. The exchange rate of the dollar should be a floating one, as it is the most leading indicator of economy’s health today,” emphasized the winning team.

According to the team’s supervisor, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Economics Aleksey Titkov, it is important to hear the opinion of the youth, young economists, their comments on the current situation at exchange markets, in particular, the exchange rate of the tenge to the dollar. 

“We gave specific proposals on how to improve the current situation at exchange markets and what could be done to mitigate the consequences of the present exchange rate of the dollar. As the result, the solutions offered by our students turned out to be the most constructive and realistic ones. That’s what made the team stand out among other participants,” said Aleksey Anatolyevich.

The participants’ performance was judged by ex-director of the National Bank, economist Oraz Zhandossov, the head of the court of directors of AltynBank Arman Dunayev and the chairman of the board of the National Bank Umut Shayakhmetova, who, by the way, offered the students a job at the bank.