Monetary policy is constrained by the Qatari riyal's peg to the US dollar. In October 2008, when the US cut its main interest rate to 0.25%, the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) broke with its previous policy of mirroring US rate changes and held rates steady. In keeping with its contrarian approach, and in contrast to much of the rest of the emerging world, in April Qatar reduced its lending rate by 50 basis points, to 5%, the first change since 2006, in an effort to boost private-sector credit growth (which was only 8.5% last year, compared with a 40% rise in public-sector credit). However, the QCB will seek to mop up any excess liquidity by issuing Treasury bills, as it did recently with the massive sale of QR50bn worth of bonds to domestic banks. The QCB recently announced that another round of T-bill issuance would take place in June. Speculative flows will be dampened by the decision not to press ahead with the GCC single currency for the time being, which will mean that the authorities are unlikely to consider a revision to Qatar's exchange-rate regime. Separately, Qatar will maintain its support for the banking system, retaining substantial equity stakes in domestic banks (including additional 10% stakes taken in January 2011) and holding on to parts of their domestic loan books until liquidity concerns have eased in the latter part of the forecast period.