Bahrain has denied there were secret plans to de-peg from the US dollar.

'The Bahraini dinar will remain pegged to the US dollar as a cornerstone of the Kingdom's financial and banking policies,' Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa said.

'This option proved right as it preserved the stability of our national currency over the last few years.'

He issued a statement in response to a report published in The Independent newspaper yesterday.

In an exclusive article titled 'The Demise of the Dollar', Robert Fisk claimed the Arab countries had launched 'secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading'.

He claimed Gulf Arab and Chinese sources in Hong Kong confirmed the plans to de-peg from the dollar and adopt a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, in addition to the planned GCC currency.-TradeArabia News Service