“Saudi Arabia should use its massive foreign exchange reserves to defend the riyal, amid fears the world is descending into a new phase of global currency wars, the World Bank has said. The kingdom’s shaky currency peg with the dollar has come under record pressure this week as the price of oil has plummeted to near 12-year lows. Central bank reserves have dropped from a peak of $735bn to around $635bn this year – a pace of spending which will exhaust the kingdom’s fiscal buffers within five years The monarchy has vowed to stick by the exchange regime and is instead planning to strengthen its coffers through the unprecedented flotation of its state-owned oil giant, Aramco.”