US unveils secretive Saudi debt holdings after 41 years

The United States has revealed that Saudi Arabia holds $116.8 billion in US debt after keeping the number a tightly-kept secret for 41 years.

The US Treasury Department disclosed the information on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg, making Saudi Arabia among the top dozen foreign nations with US holdings.

Sources have told Saudi media that the publicised amount "does not include all holdings".

The number is a very different from that $750 billion in treasury securities that Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir threatened Saudi Arabia would sell off last month if the US Congress passes a bill to declassify pages of the 9/11 Commission's report.

A US Treasury spokesperson has said that the decision to start listing Saudi holdings separately was not linked in any way to recent warnings from the Saudi government.

Monday's disclosure is the first since 1974, in which the US has laid out foreign ownership of Treasury securities, which had long been grouped together as "oil exporting nations" and "Caribbean banking centres".

The breakdown of the investments held by Saudi Arabia makes the country the 13th largest foreign holder of Treasury securities, compared to the China at the top of the list with $1.3 trillion, followed by Japan with $1.1 trillion.

Other Gulf States holding large amounts of US debt include the United Arab Emirates with $62.5 billion, Kuwait with $31.4 billion and Oman with $15.9 billion.

The Treasury Department report comes as Saudi Arabia deals with economic challenges during a period of prolonged low crude prices.