Plans by Gulf states to launch a single currency could be delayed by three years to 2013. “It is impossible for the [single] currency to be launched within six months,” Al Hayat reported on Friday, quoting an unidentified senior Gulf source. “I expect the new deadline to be 2013,” the official said. Last month, the UAE became the second Gulf nation after Oman to abandon the single currency project of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Earlier this year, the GCC abandoned an initial 2010 deadline for issuing the common notes and coins, saying a joint monetary council would determine a new timetable for issuance. The UAE, the second-largest Arab economy, abandoned the project last month. Saudi Arabia has said it and other GCC members Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar will proceed with the plan and will sign a monetary union plan tomorrow (Monday). In 2001, the six members of the GCC - a loose political and economic alliance - agreed to set up a monetary union like that of the European Union. Separately, Gulf Arab finance ministers have asked Price Waterhouse Coopers to study how the region should share common customs revenues, the last step in implementing a regional customs union, officials said on Saturday. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, introduced a customs union in 2003 as one preparatory step towards the formation of a regional common market, but hurdles including the distributions of revenues have delayed the plan. “Price Waterhouse has been appointed to do a study on collection and distribution of revenues for the GCC customs union,” GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah said on the sidelines of a GCC finance ministers meeting in Oman. Abdulmalik Al Hinai, undersecretary for economic affairs at Oman's Ministry of National Economy said the bloc could opt for a formula that guarantees fair distribution of revenues or continue “with the mechanisms of final destination of goods, and then meet every three months to know what each country owes”. “The other option is to have a central fund and those funds be redistributed based on some formula. This issue has to be decided this year before the summit.”
