Qatar Central Bank Governor Says Won’t Review Currency Peg

Qatar remains fully committed to its currency peg to the U.S. dollar and is not reviewing its currency policy, central bank governor Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani said on Wednesday.

“We are fully supporting the peg and will not re-examine this policy…This has been our policy for years and will stay the same,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of regional central bankers in Doha.

He declined to elaborate on the reasons for Qatar sticking to its peg.

Earlier this year Khalid Alkhater, the Qatar central bank’s director of research and monetary policy, said Gulf Cooperation Council economies might need to rethink their monetary policies and the long-term sustainability of their currency pegs to the dollar as Gulf and U.S. economies diverged.

Since then, however, several GCC central bank governors, including those of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and now Qatar, have ruled out any change to their pegs.