科威特可能会放弃联系汇率

睡睡

科威特有意考慮轉換美圓為一攬子貨幣


By Will McSheehy

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Kuwait, the third-largest Arab oil producer, may abandon the dinar's peg against the dollar in favor of a basket of currencies to help minimize economic harm after the dollar declined.

``We might go to a basket for an interim period,'' Bader al- Humaidhi, Kuwait's finance minister, told reporters today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``The dollar fell a lot against the euro last year, but if we'd been linked to a basket we wouldn't have suffered'' as much.

Al-Humaidhi declined to comment on which currencies might be in the basket. A switch from the dollar is being studied by Kuwait's central bank, he said. The Kuwaiti dinar rose to 0.28915 against the dollar as of 4 p.m. in London, from 0.28920 yesterday, according to Bloomberg data.

Dollar reserves are being replaced with euros by oil producers including the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. China, which has the world's largest foreign-exchange reserves, and Indonesia say they plan to increase euro reserves and Iran says it's boosting oil sales priced in euros.

The dollar has declined 5.2 percent against the euro in the past 12 months. The currency traded at $1.2955 against the euro at 12:47 p.m. in New York from $1.3026 yesterday, when it reached a two-week high of $1.3044.

Currencies Undervalued

Most of the currencies of the six Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are undervalued against the dollar, based on their current-account balances, inflation and costs of goods and services, Deutsche Bank AG said in a report this month.

``Without the peg, Gulf currencies would have appreciated in the past couple of years because of the increase in oil prices,'' thus boosting the cost of imports, Standard Chartered Plc economist Monica Malik said in a toldephone interview today from Dubai. ``Instead they weakened against other major currencies owing to the dollar.''

The six Gulf Arab states earned as much as $500 billion from oil sales last year, according to the International Monetary Fund. About two thirds of that amount is likely to be invested in overseas savings and investments in countries including the U.S.

The U.S. needs to attract about $2.5 billion a day from foreign investors to keep the dollar steady and fund a current- account deficit that widened to a record $225.6 billion in the third quarter of last year.

G-7 Urge Float

Kuwait in 2003 became the last of six Gulf Arab monarchies including Saudi Arabia to peg its currency to the dollar in readiness for a single currency planned for 2010.

The Kuwaiti dinar is trading at the top of a 3.5 percent permitted band set when the dollar peg was established in January 2003.

Kuwait central bank governor Sheikh Salem Abdul Aziz al- Sabah last month said he may decide to widen the range or change the peg if the U.S. currency continues to weaken and threatens domestic growth.

The Group of Seven industrial nations, including the U.S., Japan, Germany and the U.K., in April urged countries with current-account surpluses to allow their currencies to appreciate to help adjust global imbalances.

``I don't think other Gulf countries are going to adjust their pegs,'' Dorothee Gasser, a Middle East and Africa economist at ING Bank NV in London, said in a phone interview today. ``What we are likely to see is that they are going to convert some of their reserves into gold. It's bearish for the dollar.''

Single Currency

Crude oil futures in New York reached a record on July 14. They have since fallen because of rising stock piles in the U.S. and receding security concerns in oil producing nations. Oil at around $55 a barrel is still almost three times higher than five years ago.

Kuwait remains committed to a single currency for the Gulf states, al-Humaidhi said today. ``The 2010 target is still the same. I hope we can meet it,'' he said.

睡睡

卡塔尔
LONDON -- Oil-rich Gulf Arab estates are seen shifting their assets away from the United States, and Qatar is keen on customer states including Asia and Europe as destinations, the country's financial regulator says.

Middle Eastern countries have been scaling back its once near full reliance on U.S. assets in recent years to minimize risks and enhance returns as they diversify the massive windfall from oil and gas revenues.

"Regionally there is less evidence of enthusiasm to be the major owner of U.S. assets. It doesn't mean U.S. investments will go away but you will find governments and agencies looking at a wider range of opportunities," Phillip Thorpe, chairman and chief executive officer of Qatar Financial Center Regulatory Authority, told Reuters in an interview this week.

"For Qatar it's clearly the case they are enthusiastic to assets in its customer states -- follow the gas. Where is it going? That's good place to buy, as you are offsetting some risks by buying their assets," he said in the ski resort of Davos, where more than 2,400 business leaders and politicians are gathering.

Thorpe said that by 2012 the broad breakdown in Qatar's energy customer base would be around one third the UK and Europe, one third Asia, and the rest the United States.
"So it's very broadly diversified."

The economy of Qatar, which has a population of less than 1 million and is home to the world's third largest gas deposits, has tripled since 1998, making it among the world's fastest-growing economies.

The economy was expected to grow around 8 percent last year and inflation slightly easing to 6 percent.

Property prices and rents have surged in several Gulf Arab nations in recent years as the region's economies flourished on high income from oil exports.

"In terms of overall economic growth, it's been running in double-digits. The evidence of stress is in inflation but there is no sign of other chronic problems that are rising," Thorpe said.

"A lot of it is because the government is using the windfall of oil ... very cleverly, which is helping to mop up some of the liquidity."

Oil and gas are believed to accounted for about 65 percent of the country's GDP and 87 percent of its exports.

kwy

Thanks for posting!!

笑傲江湖

:(:(:(