Bahrain to Keep Dollar Peg

MANAMA, 21 July 2007 — Bahrain has no intention to change its monetary policy with regard to the Bahraini dinar being pegged to the dollar, said Deputy King Shaikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa. “Throughout the past years, Bahrain found the link between dinar and the US dollar as the best option which all the GCC states, except Kuwait agreed upon,” he said, adding that the decrease in the dollar value may be temporary given its remarkable strength over the past 40 years. “Bahrain supports its brotherly states in the GCC in pegging their currencies to the dollar,” he said, adding that the common goal is to achieve a GCC common currency and “linking it to the dollar will be a basic point of the project.”