GCC common market to boost growth by 2.15%

Gulf oil producers aim to create nearly 2.75 million new jobs and increase economic growth by 2.15 per cent in a landmark common market they launched at the start of 2008, a senior Gulf official said on Wednesday.
 
The common market, approved by the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, will also upgrade economic efficiency, cut production costs, increase competitiveness and depress prices, said Abdul Aziz Al Owaishiq, director of international economic relations at the Riyadh-based GCC.
 
“The common market will derive lessons from the European Union by increasing growth by 2.15 per cent annually and creating 2.75 million jobs,” he said at a seminar on the GCC common market in Abu Dhabi.
 
Owaishiq said the market, part of overall economic merger plans by the 29-year-old Gulf alliance, would largely benefit citizens as it would give them equal treatment in all member states.
 
“For citizens, it means owning shares in any member, setting up companies, working in the public sector, getting social security and pension, owning property, transferring capital and receiving free education and health services besides free movement and residence,” he said.
 
“For companies it means practicing all economic, investment and services activities in any member, owning property for investment purposes, benefiting from a large single market for production and distribution and upgrading output.”
 
As for the local and pan-GCC economy, the common market will create a unified market for export and import, expand scopes for inter-GCC investment as well as for Arab and foreign capital inflow, optimise economic resources, improve the GCC’s bargaining position and boost the group’s status worldwide, he said.
 
The GCC groups the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman in a loose economic, political and defence alliance created in May 1981.
 
The six members signed a landmark pact in 1983 to create a common market, a customs union and a monetary union within overall merger plans.
 
The GCC’s combined economy is estimated at around $one trillion in 2010 and the group controls nearly 40 per cent of the world’s recoverable oil deposits and over 20 per cent of its gas resources.
 
GCC heads of state will discuss economic and political issues when they hold their annual summit in Abu Dhabi in the first week of December.