Kuwait cuts repo, keeps benchmark steady after Fed

Published Thursday, January 31, 2008

By Agencies

Kuwait cut its repurchase rate by 50 basis points on Thursday after a US rate cut a day earlier and kept its benchmark unchanged.

The central bank of the Middle East's fourth-largest oil exporter reduced the repurchase rate to 3.5 per cent from 4 per cent.

It kept the benchmark discount rate steady at 5.75 per cent, having slashed it by 50 basis points last week after an emergency 75-basis-point US Federal Reserve rate cut.

Kuwait broke ranks with its Gulf Arab neighbours in May and dropped its peg to the US dollar in favour of a currency basket.

The Fed reduced its benchmark by half a percentage point on Wednesday, its second rate cut in eight days, as part of an effort to halt a slowdown in an economy hit by a housing slump and a credit crunch. (Reuters)

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