In early March there was an article about the theft of 1.1 billion dollars from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in 2004-2005. The article mentioned one particular private Iraqi bank that had a hand in the theft of Iraq’s MoD funds. The private Iraqi Bank had cashed and transferred the funds to a bank abroad for a total of 497 million dollars.
April 2007Monthly Archives
Killed for $11,500 in Iraq Bank Robbery
On a road east of Kut, in southern Iraq, police found the bodies of two women, both teachers from Diyala, who were kidnapped during a recent bank robbery in Baquba, the police said. The thieves took about $11,500, the police said.
Kuwait cuts repo after warning to dinar speculators
KUWAIT – Kuwait’s central bank cut its repurchase rate by 12.5 basis points on Sunday after warning speculators against betting on a revaluation of the oil exporter’s dollar-pegged dinar currency.
The move, four days after the bank said it may act against currency speculators, takes the repo rate to 5.75 percent, making it cheaper for Kuwaiti banks to borrow money for one week from the central bank.
That would put more dinars on the market, easing upward pressure on the exchange rate. It also raises the risk of inflation, a factor that prompted Kuwait, which has a tenth of the world’s oil reserves, to revalue its currency last year.
‘It’s a catch-22 situation for Kuwait,’ said Steve Brice, regional head of research at Standard Chartered in Dubai, adding that concerns about inflation appeared to have prevented the central bank from making a bolder move.
Kuwait Central Bank fires warning shot at speculators on dinar
You know the Iraqi government and the Central Bank of Iraq, Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Interior is watching how this is going to be played out.
Iraq’s plans are developing slow but developing…
Kuwait City/Dubai: Kuwait’s central bank said that it may take unspecified measures to curb speculation in its dinar, firing a warning shot as speculators buy the currency in the hope that the oil producer may revalue.
“Having huge inflows of capital is increasing the burden on us,” Nabeel al-Mannae, deputy governor of the Kuwait central bank, said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “We will make sure they won’t make money on our currency.”
Investors had been buying dinar forwards after Kuwaiti officials said they may revalue the unit, which, like other Gulf Arab currencies, is pegged to the dollar.
The central bank may “take necessary measures so that there will be no benefit from such speculative behaviour”, Mannae said in the earlier statement.
Unsatisfied
The bank is “unsatisfied with the increase in the volume of dinar purchases that do not have underlying commercial foundation and which are indicative of accumulation of speculative long dinar position”, Mannae said in the statement.
