Kuwait left the dinar reference rate steady for a third trading day on Monday after the dollar climbed against the pound in Asian trading.
The dinar will trade around a mid point of 0.27310 per dollar, unchanged from a day earlier, the central bank said.
The dinar, which tracks a currency basket dominated by the dollar, has tended to follow the greenback’s moves on global markets.
In late New York trading on Friday, the dollar rose 0.64% against the euro and gained 0.06% on the yen.
By early Asian trading on Monday, the US currency had risen 0.25% versus the pound after the UK’s Guardian newspaper quoted a central bank official as saying rate cuts were needed to prevent a sharp slowdown in British growth.
The US Federal Reserve is also expected to cut rates after a two-day policy meeting ending on Wednesday by as much as a half-point following last week’s 75-basis-point reduction, the biggest in a quarter-century.
The dinar, currency of the Middle East’s fourth-largest oil exporter, has risen 5.87% since May 19, a day before the central bank started tracking a basket of currencies.
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Kuwait has declined to give the composition of the basket, saying only that the dollar was its biggest component.
The central bank said the dollar’s decline on global markets was driving up inflation and making some imports more expensive. Kuwait pays for more than a third of its imports in euros. (Reuters)
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