RIYADH: Central banks are currently struggling to avoid raising the interest rates amid higher inflation in Western countries.
But according to Erik Lundback, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have somehow managed to maintain the same interest rate levels.
Lundback made these remarks during a virtual conference recently organized by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“The rising cost of living in the GCC is similar to what we see in other emerging markets, but at a much slower pace,” Alia Moubayed, MENA and Pakistan chief economist at Jefferies, an investment bank based in London, told Arab News.
Inflation in Bahrain, for example, is the lowest among the…