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GCC likely to miss currency deadline
The governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) said Saturday GCC countries were unlikely to launch a single currency by 2010.
Hamad Al-Syari said “new exceptional developments” in the region would make it difficult to meet the 2010 deadline Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported.
Al-Syari spoke to reporters in Riyadh following the 44th meeting of governors of central banks and financial institutions of GCC member countries.
“Despite growing difficulties, the GCC member countries agreed on the necessity of pressing ahead for the single currency” he said, adding that technical committees were working hard to meet the deadline and that it was premature to talk about postponement.
The issue had been prominent at the meeting, he said, and will be further discussed at a coming meeting of GCC ministers of finance and central bank governors in October.
Growing inflation in GCC economies was a matter of concern, Al-Syari said, attributing the problem to local factors such as increasing expenditures and growing investments.
The meeting also addressed the importance of tightening measures to combat money laundering and the funding of terrorism, he added.
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Posted by Hombil, Muscat, Oman on 9 September 2007 at 08:00 UAE time
I do not know as to what are the “new exceptional developments” in the region, which will make it difficult to meet the 2010 deadline to launch single currency, but Oman has all along been saying that 2010 is too early to launch single currency, while other GCC countries were quite confident.
However, there is an urgent need for the GCC Finance Ministers to discuss and explore the feasibility of GCC currency to be delinked with US Dollar, which is one of the reasons of growing inflation.