Kuwait not planning return to dollar peg
(AFP) – 1 day ago
KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait has no plan at the moment to re-link its dinar to the US dollar after two years of pegging to a basket of currencies, the finance minister said in comments published on Wednesday.
"At this stage, we don't see a need to change the dinar's exchange rate policy based on pegging to a balanced basket of currencies," Mustafa al-Shamali said in a reply to a parliamentary question published in Al-Rai daily.
The minister said the policy provides flexibility to the central bank in designing and executing its monetary policy.
In May 2007, Kuwait ended almost five years of the dinar's link to the dollar and reverted to a basket of currencies in a bid to fight inflation that soared to record high levels before starting to decline late last year.
The change to the dollar peg in 2003 was taken to facilitate the launch of the Gulf monetary union and single currency, which many observers now believe will be too difficult to launch on time in 2010.
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Here's another article on it:
Kuwait to keep currency policy unchanged -paper
09.09.09, 04:43 AM EDT
DUBAI, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Kuwait's central bank does not see any need to change its policy of having the dinar track a basket of currencies, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai newspaper reported on Wednesday.
'We do not see at this stage any necessity to change the exchange rate policy for the Kuwaiti dinar,' the central bank said in a statement issued in response to questions put to the country's finance minister by a member of parliament.
Officials at the central bank were unavailable for comment on the report.
The currency was tracking a 'special weighted basket of currencies from countries that are linked to Kuwait through significant financial and commercial relations', the bank said in the statement.
The central bank severed the dinar's peg to the dollar on May 20, 2007 and started tracking a basket of currencies. It has declined to give the composition of the basket, saying only that the dollar is its biggest component.
(Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; editing by Chris Pizzey) Keywords: KUWAIT CURRENCY/
(AFP) – 1 day ago
KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait has no plan at the moment to re-link its dinar to the US dollar after two years of pegging to a basket of currencies, the finance minister said in comments published on Wednesday.
"At this stage, we don't see a need to change the dinar's exchange rate policy based on pegging to a balanced basket of currencies," Mustafa al-Shamali said in a reply to a parliamentary question published in Al-Rai daily.
The minister said the policy provides flexibility to the central bank in designing and executing its monetary policy.
In May 2007, Kuwait ended almost five years of the dinar's link to the dollar and reverted to a basket of currencies in a bid to fight inflation that soared to record high levels before starting to decline late last year.
The change to the dollar peg in 2003 was taken to facilitate the launch of the Gulf monetary union and single currency, which many observers now believe will be too difficult to launch on time in 2010.
----------------------------------------------------
Here's another article on it:
Kuwait to keep currency policy unchanged -paper
09.09.09, 04:43 AM EDT
DUBAI, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Kuwait's central bank does not see any need to change its policy of having the dinar track a basket of currencies, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai newspaper reported on Wednesday.
'We do not see at this stage any necessity to change the exchange rate policy for the Kuwaiti dinar,' the central bank said in a statement issued in response to questions put to the country's finance minister by a member of parliament.
Officials at the central bank were unavailable for comment on the report.
The currency was tracking a 'special weighted basket of currencies from countries that are linked to Kuwait through significant financial and commercial relations', the bank said in the statement.
The central bank severed the dinar's peg to the dollar on May 20, 2007 and started tracking a basket of currencies. It has declined to give the composition of the basket, saying only that the dollar is its biggest component.
(Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; editing by Chris Pizzey) Keywords: KUWAIT CURRENCY/