KUWAIT: Annual Kuwaiti money-supply growth picked up marginally to 15.33 percent in August after hitting a 20-month low in July, as funds in savings and time deposits rose at a slower rate, official data showed.
M3, the broadest measure of money circulating in the economy, hit 20.62 billion dinars ($77.14 billion) in August, compared with 17.88 billion dinars a year earlier, the central bank said in a monthly report on its website yesterday.
Money supply growth is an indicator of future inflation. In July, money supply had risen by 15.29 percent, the slowest rate since November 2006.
Inflation in Kuwait was 11.1 percent in May, the latest published data, just off a record level a month earlier.
August money supply growth slightly picked up after quasi-money — which includes savings and time deposits in dinars, as well as foreign currency deposits — rose 13.35 percent, down from 16.1 percent in July.
Narrow money, or M1, rose 0.7 percent to 4.65 billion dinars in August from 4.62 billion dinars in July. The growth rate was 12.7 percent in July and 16 percent in June, the data showed.
Kuwait severed its dinar’s peg to the US dollar in May 2007, saying dollar weakness was stoking inflation by making some imports more expensive.