Saudi, UAE cenbank heads: Happy with interest rates

Saudi Arabia's central bank governor said on Thursday that he was happy with current interest rate levels in the OPEC member country.Asked whether he was happy with current interest rates, Muhammad Al Jasser said: "Yes, we are happy about it." The Saudi central bank has been keeping its repo rate at 2 percent since January 2009 and the reverse repo rate at 0.25 percent since June 2009.Saudi Arabia's currency is pegged to the US dollar, which limits the central bank's scope to combat inflation because it needs to keep interest rates closely aligned with US benchmarks to avoid excessive pressures on the riyal. Sultan Nasser Al Suweidi, the central bank governor of the United Arab Emirates, which also runs a currency peg to the greenback, said on the sidelines of a meeting of Arab central bank governors that current interest rates were "good". Asked whether there was any plan to change them, Suweidi said: "If they are good, why should we change them."