Gulf Central Banks Pause Rate Hikes in Tandem With Fed

Central banks in the Gulf including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates followed the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates in order to protect their currencies’ peg against the US dollar.

Policymakers in the region generally have little room to maneuver due to the greenback-pegging policy and tend to move in lockstep with the US central bank decisions. The Fed signaled it would likely resume tightening to cool inflation, projecting more increases than economists and investors expected.