By: Bedour Elrae
Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia raised its possessions of US treasury bonds during September by 3% or $5.4 billion, as shown by the US Department of the Treasury data.
Saudi assets of US bonds increased to $181.5 billion by the end of last September, compared with $176.1 billion for the same period in 2018.
Meanwhile, Saudi holdings of US treasury bills decreased by 1.25% or $2.3 billion, during the same month, despite an increase by 6.7% during the first nine months of the year to $172.2 billion.
This brought the total Saudi purchases of US debt instruments to $9.3 billion since the beginning of 2019.
The Kingdom ranks 12th worldwide on the list of US debt holders, led by Japan and China with $1.146 trillion and $1.102 trillion, respectively, followed by the UK with $346.2 billion.
Saudi Arabia led Arab countries in terms of US debt instrument assets, followed by Kuwait and the UAE with $44.1 billion and $37.3 billion, respectively.
US treasury bonds totalled $6.78 trillion by the end of September, increasing by 8.8% year-on-year (YoY).
