Today, Wednesday, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar raised interest rates by about 25 basis points, to keep pace with the US Federal Reserve’s moves, while Qatar’s decision to fix came.
And the US Federal Reserve approved raising interest rates by 25 points, in line with market expectations, to reach the range of 5-5.25%.
Most of the Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, peg their currencies to the dollar and follow the example of the US Central Bank, with regard to monetary policy.
And the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia decided to raise the rate of the “repo” repurchase agreement by 25 basis points, to 5.75%.
The “Saudi Central Bank” also decided, according to a statement, seen by “Al Arabiya.net”, to raise the rate of the reverse repo agreement “reverse repo” by 25 basis points, to 5.25%.
For its part, the UAE Central Bank also decided to raise the basic interest rate by 25 basis points to 5.15%.
The Central Bank of Bahrain decided to raise the basic interest rate by 25 basis points, in light of the developments in the international financial markets, and as part of the measures taken by the Central Bank to ensure the smooth performance of the money markets.
The Central Bank stated in a statement that it had raised the basic interest rate on one-week deposits from 5.75% to 6.00%.
The Central Bank of Bahrain also raised the interest rate on overnight deposits from 5.50% to 5.75%, and raised the interest rate on deposits for a period of four weeks from 6.50% to 6.75%. This is in addition to raising the interest rate imposed by the Central Bank on retail banks in exchange for lending facilities from 6.75% to 7.00%.
The Central Bank stated that it continues to monitor developments in the international and domestic market, in order to take any additional measures necessary to maintain monetary and financial stability in the Kingdom.
The Qatar Central Bank said, on Wednesday, that it had decided to raise deposit, lending and repurchase interest rates by 25 basis points, as of May 4.
The bank added in a statement that it raised the deposit rate to 5.50%, lending to 6%, and repurchase rates to 5.75%.
An earlier statement from the bank that it would keep interest rates unchanged is no longer available on the website and has been replaced by a new statement.