Almaty. October 24. Kazakhstan Today - The international reserves of the country, as a whole, (in current prices), including money of the National fund (by preliminary data, $18 754.2 million), decreased by 1.4 % and have made $36 595.2 million, the agency reports referring to the message of the National Bank of the Republic. Decrease in net international reserves of the National Bank in the first half of September 2007 caused compression of monetary base by 2.4 % (or by 41.0 billion KZT). Net international reserves of the National Bank decreased by 3.2 % (or by $584.3 million) in current prices. Operations of the National Bank on service of external debt of the Ministry of Finance, decrease of the rests on the correspondent accounts of the second-tier banks in foreign currency in the National Bank and sale of currency in the internal currency market have led to reduction of net foreign currency reserves (hard currency by $606.0 million. The assets in gold have grown by $21.7 million as a result of an increase of its price in the world markets by 1.5 %. In real terms, net international reserves of the National Bank have decreased by 3.3 %, net assets in hard currency - by 3.6 %, assets in gold have not changed.