Press Releases
CBK Raises its Discount Rate to 3.5%
H.E. the Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK), Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah, announced that CBK has decided to raise its discount rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.50% from 3.25%. H.E. the Governor explained that trends in the national economy and the developments in both liquidity levels and cost of funds in the domestic market necessitated the increase in the discount rate to place domestic economic activity on a sustainable track.
H.E. the Governor added that the accelerating pace of economic recovery in major currency countries led monetary authorities there to raise their interest rates, a factor taken into account by CBK in its decision to raise the discount rate in view of the openness of the Kuwaiti economy to the outside world, which requires that domestic interest rates conform to developments and trends in interest rates on major currencies.
Finally, H.E. the Governor indicated that CBK discount rate is linked within fixed margins to the KD lending rates in local banks. The last change to the CBK discount rate took place on 7 November 2002, when it was cut by a half percentage point.
