Mubasher: Kuwait is expected to lift interest rates on the US dollar three times in 2018; this lift will be executed as 0.25% each time, the weekly economic report by Al Shall Consulting said, according to IMF estimates.

It is expected that inflation in Kuwait would reach 2.5% and 2.7% in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and most of which is imported inflation, Al Shall added.

For the second time in 2017, the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) oppose the basic interest rate movement on the US dollar raised by a quarter point percent by the US Federal Reserve Bank on 14 December 2017.

“The dissenting in the movement of interest rates between the US$ and the Kuwaiti dinar is not the first precedence. Historically since the start of the current millennium, the Kuwaiti dinar interest movement contradicted with its movement on the US$ 11 times in the event of increase and 11 times in the event of decrease out of 48 changes on the US$ interest rate,” Al Shall noted in its report.

Al Shall believes that increasing the interest rate, the discount, on the Kuwaiti dinar will begin in 2018.