Majority of citizens in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries endorsed the proposed GCC single currency, a survey by the Social and Economic Research Institute (Sesri) at Qatar University showed, the results of which was published in Gulf Times. The survey, which was conducted between December 2010 and January 2011 among a total of 2,692 respondents across five GCC countries - found that majority of the citizens in Qatar (85 percent), Saudi Arabia (83 percent), the UAE (84 percent) and Bahrain (82 percent) believed that their countries would benefit from being a member of the GCC single currency while Kuwaitis, on the other hand are less certain about such benefit as 49 percent of the Kuwaiti respondents said that their country would benefit from being a member of the single currency. “Except for Kuwaitis, the majority of the respondents in other four countries agreed that the introduction of the GCC single currency will foster economic growth in their countries with nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Qataris and 54 percent of Emiratis strongly believe in this role of the single currency,” Sesri director Dr. Darwish Al-Emadi said Monday at a press conference. “Support for the project is highest among Qataris (90 percent), Saudis (72 percent), and Bahraini citizens (72 percent) while Emiratis (59 percent) and Kuwaitis (41 percent) expressed the lowest support for the project,” he said. Moreover, he said “despite all the potential impact of the single currency on their respective countries, respondents of the survey recognized that introduction of the single currency may result in an imbalance of powers.” Emiratis (84 percent) are likely to hold such a position as compared to Qataris (63 percent), Bahrainis (62 percent), and Saudis (62 percent). As to the preferred name of the single currency, survey showed a preference for respondent's home country currency name as respondents in Bahrain (35 percent), Kuwait (72 percent) would like the name to be the dinar, the majority of respondents in Qatar (58 percent) and in Saudi Arabia would like the name to be the riyal, whereas for Emiratis, half of the respondents would prefer the name dirham. However, a neutral name - Khaliji - is being suggested, Al
