Central Bank denies expats bad debts report

KUWAIT: The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) has denied a report published in Kuwait Times on July 19, 2018 captioned ‘$1.8 billion bad debts for laid off expatriates’.

In a statement to the press, the Central Bank of Kuwait “assures that all the figures contained in that report are altogether incorrect whether at the level of numbers of debt classification, and that it had not published any data or information in this regard, except what is published in its quarterly statistics as part of its reporting on indicators of the financial soundness including the non-performing loan ratios that reveal a significant improvement of a meager 1.4 percent, which proves the financial soundness and strength of the Kuwaiti banking sector.”

The statement continues: “Furthermore, the data published by the Central Bank of Kuwait in this regard do not relate to the bad debts owed to banks or financing companies by a specific category of customers.

Therefore, the Central Bank of Kuwait underlines the importance of referring to its official reports and periodicals for the correct financial and economic information particularly since they are precisely developed and posted on public domain to provide accurate information and figures.

The Central Bank of Kuwait would like to seize this opportunity to call upon the press and media agencies to exercise caution when speaking on any information attributed to the Central Bank of Kuwait since publishing any false or misleading information may adversely affect the financial and economic conditions of the country.”