Soaring oil prices, growing liberalisation and huge prospects in Iraq have created boom conditions in Kuwait and massive opportunities for banks over the past 18 months. But Sheikh Salem Abdul Aziz Al-Sabah, governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait, is well aware of the dangers of booming markets and asset ‘bubbles’, and is anxious to avoid a repeat of the devastating Souk Al-Manakh crisis of the early 1980s and to curb other excesses.
Amid record oil revenues, record bank profitability, record stock prices and liquidity, Sheikh Salem is striving hard to keep a tight rein on the sector while also allowing new banks to enter and lifting the restriction on foreign banks.
