GCC central bank possible by mid-2006

Gulf News

Sharjah: The GCC Supreme Council will study the possibility of setting up a GCC central bank by mid-2006, as a prelude to creating a GCC common currency.

"Once created, the apex Gulf regulatory banking authority will adopt a single monetary policy for all GCC states," said Dr Nasser Al Qaood, director of the finance and monetary integration department of the GCC General Secretariat.

The GCC central bank could be structured along the lines of the European Central Bank, he said.
The unified GCC monetary policy itself would be patterned on the European Monetary Union experiment, he said.

"It is better to benefit from the experience of European Monetary Union, and the creation of the euro," he told the Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies.

He proposed that by 2010 an authority should be assigned to issue a single GCC currency, and by 2007 details such as the name of the currency, its specifications and the mechanism to put it into cirtulation should be hammered out.

He said that the authorities had studied two proposals as alternatives to the GCC central bank: creating a monetary coordinating authority annexed to the secretariat, or assigning GCC member-states' central banks to monitor the monetary policy.

But he confirmed the secretariat would most likely go the GCC central bank route.

A technical unit has been created in the GCC Secretariat to study the details of how such an entity can be established, he added.

In this regard, the secretariat earlier contacted the European Central Bank authorities. This had resulted in the organisation of a workshop on GCC monetary integration.

"The ECB and the IMF prepared an exhaustive study on GCC monetary union, which was discussed by the Union's technical committee," he added.

Read about this sometime in 1998. But didn't have much details.

I wonder what they'll call it. The Khaleejo?

I would say go with Arab Riyal or Arab Dirham.

Interesting , i wonder its going to take so damn long ?

Proposed currency name :-

1- Deryal

well, as a german i can say that a monetary union has advantages and disadvantages. here in germany many things have become much more expensive, especially the cheaper things! eg food,... the problem is people don't think if it has become more expensive because they don't want to convert to the new currency, so many companies made their products more expensive and then some time you wonder, for what you spend all the money! :weird:

in germany we had it quite easy, as 1 euro is 1,95 deutsch mark! so euro is about half price! but the french had big problems as they always had to divide by a totally stupid number like 3,69 or something!

it is said to have economical advantages, but i don't know if it realy helps and people are still converting the euro to their old currency, just to compare. and these 5 minutes to change money,... i mean, i think i would have time for this!!!
for the tourist it doesn't matter, because it takes dozens of years till people get used to it!!!!

You're german??

You're german??

yes!! look under my avatar!!! ;)

I knew you were living in Germany but I always thought you were an alien there to study/work.... didnt realize you were a native german! I dont know why! Now I know... !

New currency should be called ... the DINAR!

New currency should be called ... the DINAR!

You have sweared never to visit this region. If they indeed call the common currency "Dinar" like in your home country, yould you change your mind ...

Dunno if a common currency is a good idea but I know that back in the UK not many people are that fond of the euro (I'm not either) and I don't think the advantages are that great either. I mean, the UK economy (and the Danish and Swedish ones for that matter << the three non-euro EU countries) are doing better than eurozone ones

Currency here seems to beyond ech country I mean you can use money from most places in the region in many big stores
For the people living here how common is that move accross the region ?
Still intresting

I think a common currency is excellent news. It should have been layed out years ago, but I guess better late then never. Hopefully we'll see a common currency in the near future. This will bring the Gulf countries' economies even closer making us all one strong economical force.

I don't think that the Gulf countries will face any problems with the new curreny like europe. You can use gulf currency anywhere in the gulf, with exception of kuwait. this is because they are all very close in value. Right now I have qatari and saudi riyals and bahraini dinars in my wallet. I can use these currencies in bahrain, qatar, and the eastern part of saudi arabia.

When there is a currency union I hope to see the central bank in bahrain, since bahrain has a long history in banking and i think they will do a good job. As for the currency, im not really sure, i think dinar cause it was the first currency in the islamic world( not sure) or maybe khalijee dollar... K$... looks neat right?!

hehehe.. i guess the real problem about the currency not uniting is they have no idea which shk or prince or king pic to put on the money :)

maybe i should tell you that when you have a monetary union the whole economy is dependent on all other members. for example when qatar was in this union and has to go through an economical crisis, it weakens the economy of all participating countries, especially when you have a small union (uae, bahrain, qatar, oman,...). not so sure if saudi arabia plays the gane too! and yemen???

The UAE dirham doesn't have any pics of sheikhs on it. There doesn't have to be any pics of people. If you look closely at the UAE bank notes you'll see a lot of weird drawings. They have a pic of an old high school in Abu Dhabi and you can even see a bunch of air-conditioners in the picture.. hahaha.

Yeah, the Gulf currencies are used all over the Gulf right now. I use UAE dirhams in Oman. But I agree that a union of this kind will cause problems for members if one of them had economical difficulties. Yemen is not on the Gulf so it's not part of it unless you wanna count the Arabian peninsula. If you want to count all the Gulf maybe Iran and Iraq should be included? Iraq was once part of the Gulf union.

I use the euro and I think the notes look fake like monopoly money or something. Maybe it's the colours.

I use the euro and I think the notes look fake like monopoly money or something.

:lol:

I use the euro and I think the notes look fake like monopoly money or something. Maybe it's the colours.

well what do you expect? it's a currency invented by a bunch of power-greedy bureaucrats in Brussels! :bash:

well what do you expect? it's a currency invented by a bunch of power-greedy bureaucrats in Brussels! :bash:

you damn right! the euro itself has a bad design! the bills have different epochs of architecture on it and the coins are different in every country. but in germany we still have the german eagle and the brandenburger tor. the same design since 1870 or something! BORING!!!

If only Yemen was allowed to participate with other states in the Gulf. I often wonder why the gulf states haven't done more for Yemen. The country is in dire economic conditions. Yemen can provide the labour force needed by the Gulf and the Gulf can reciprocate Yemen by investing some capital into the country. Yemen use to be one of the most prosperous states in the Arabian peninsual not long ago sad to see them struggle it be great if all of the Arabian peninsula joined forces together.

Dubai-Lover, its ok, I dont need a lesson in economics, I minored in economics. And the Gulf States are very stable, both economicaly and politicaly, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. And With the growing demand for Oil and Natural Gas the only way for Gulf countries is further and further up. Besides if unstability hits one of the six countries its economical effect will be felt throughout the whole Gulf, with or without a montery union.

Right now these states have a customs union, and its positives exceed its negative, the next step will probably be a comman market by 2007 and a centralized bank also by 2007. Hopefully by 2010 will have the montery union.

Qatar currency also doesnt have any one's pic on it, I know Bahrain and Saudi arabia do, I think oman also. Im not sure about Q8.

I'm not sure that Iraq was ever part of the GCC, it might of planned to but never did. Im really not sure i might be wrong, they use to play with the GCC countries during the soccer tournaments, thats all.

and why would you wanna include Iran and Iraq. No way, god forbid they join. We have enough problems of our own and the last thing we need is to share their problems. Besides we have nothing in comman with iran, i dunno why so many ppl see iran as a possible future option for the gulf, its not like they luv us any more than we do... the only thing we have in comman with them is the arabian gulf sea... ( historically the western irani coast was arabic until it got occupied. Till this day Arab sunnis live in that area.)

As far as yeman goes, yes it would be nice for them to join, but who are we kidding. Yeman has more machine guns thant its has adult males. Probably 60 or more percent or its working populatoin is on ghat. They have this little problem with kidnappings, tribal warfare, civil unrest, terrorism and a growing number of young ppl who dont have any sort of skill or education that can be used. The govt doenst create the correct environment for foreign investment, they dont seem to encourge it.. i defintaly wont invest my money there any time soon......

Another thing all yemans had free access to saudi arabia to work without any restrictions. But abdulla saleh, the prez had to go against the whole gulf and pick iraq's side during the gulf war. Bad choice!!

Besides right now Qatar, Bahrain and I believe UAE is employing a whole lot of yemanis in its armed force.. but they cant bring in the whole 16 million yemanis..