When central bankers in the Middle East say they have no plans to end their fixed exchange rates to the dollar, the currency market hears the opposite. Merrill Lynch & Co. predicts either the United Arab Emirates or Qatar will cut their dollar peg within half a year. Standard Chartered Plc says the six Gulf Cooperation Council nations need to raise the value of their currencies 20 percent. The difference between the price of the Saudi Arabian riyal and the cost of buying it in a year using forward contracts has widened 10-fold since October as traders bet the kingdom will sever its 21-year-old link to the dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ‘The dollar peg is doomed,” said Jim Rogers, chairman of New York-based Rogers Holdings and a former partner of hedge fund manager George Soros. The gulf countries, which supply 22.2 percent of the world’s oil, according to BP Plc, are under pressure to abandon their fixed exchange rates after the dollar tumbled 10 percent against the euro in 2007. OPEC members Venezuela and Iran want to price more crude in other currencies. Inflation in the region is accelerating at the fastest pace in […]