ALMATY - Kazakhstan will allow its banks to make one-off shipments of rouble bank notes to Russia to have them deposited into their accounts, the Central Asian nation's central bank said on Friday.

Awash with rouble bank notes after hundreds of thousands of Russians fled to Kazakhstan from Moscow's conscription campaign, Kazakh banks often buy them at a much lower exchange rate than on the interbank market.

Allowing banks to export rouble notes - which Kazakhstan has already done once this year - will return those roubles to the regular banking system turnover where they can be used to pay for Kazakh imports from Russia.

The move could potentially strengthen the local tenge currency against the rouble by reducing the latter's scarcity on the Kazakh market.

(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)