Saudi cash reserves fall for fourth month in a row

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has registered a fall of 0.3 per cent in cash reserves for the fourth month in a row. SAMA said that reserves fell to 2,776.5 billion riyals ($740.4 billion) in November, compared with 2,784.2 billion riyals in October, the Anadolu news agency has reported.

According to its monthly online data, the agency said on Thursday that the kingdom’s reserves in November were up by 2 per cent compared with November last year. SAMA revealed recently that the kingdom withdrew 50 billion riyals from its reserves in September for the first time since September 2009.

The agency’s assets include gold, special drawing rights, reserves with the International Monetary Fund, foreign currency and foreign deposits abroad as well as investments in foreign securities. The kingdom is the biggest oil producer in the world and owns the largest sovereign fund in the Middle East; assets amounted to $676 billion in 2013, according to estimates prepared by the Sovereign Wealth Funds Institute.