DUBAI - Saudi Arabia, the biggest Arab economy, has no plans to issue sovereign bonds, the kingdom's finance minister said on Monday.

"Government bonds are issued when there is a need for them. Thank God, lately there has been no need to issue bonds or sukuk," Ibrahim Alassaf told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.

Analysts see no need for the top oil exporter to borrow as it has accumulated large reserves from crude exporters but they say a sovereign bond would help the nascent Saudi market of bonds, both Islamic and conventional.

With no sovereign bond to set a benchmark, secondary bond trading has been lacklustre since the market's launch in June.

The trading platform is meant to provide firms alternative sources of funding to keep infrastructure projects running as the top oil exporter had earmarked more than $400 billion for such projects in its state budget.

The kingdom had traditionally relied on local borrowing to finance budget deficit when oil prices were weak in the late 1990s.