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| Hamad Al-Sayari will – if necessary – be as tough with the Ministry of Finance as he has been with the speculators who have tried to bully Sama into devaluation several times in the past 20 years |
THE PAST 20 years in Saudi Arabia’s history have been eventful: the dramas of the Gulf wars, including the threat that Iraq would invade the kingdom; the economy going from surplus to deficit and back again as oil prices have moved dramatically; very good and very bad times for the business and financial sector; periods of high and low inflation; and attempts by speculators to devalue the Saudi Riyal. Throughout these years of mixed fortunes, the kingdom’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (Sama), has been unwavering in its commitment to sound monetary policies and rigorous regulation of the financial sector.
The man who has been one of the leading forces in implementing Sama’s policies and in doing so has earned the respect of bankers, regulators and political leaders in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East region as a whole and the global financial community is Hamad Al-Sayari, who has been acting governor or governor of Sama since 1983.