Gulf to collectively act on dollar peg

Basel: The UAE will not drop its currency peg to the US dollar without other Gulf nations doing the same, the country’s central bank governor said yesterday.

Six countries in the GCC are planning a single currency by 2010. However, this deadline is in doubt after Oman said it would not meet the target.


The GCC countries had agreed to keep their currencies pegged to the dollar in the run-up to 2010. But markets have been betting the dollar’s decline would tempt some Gulf states to change dollar-pegged exchange rates, especially after Kuwait broke ranks and adopted a currency basket in May.

“Give me a certificate, I will sign it. For the UAE I can say comfortably and surely that we will not move alone and we will move with other GCC countries. We will all be together in it. No, we are not ruling out, but we will have to move together,” Central Bank Governor Sultan Bin Nasser Al Suwaidi said.

Reuters