Single currency to be 'delayed by three years'

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 yesterday, 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 Co-operation 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 in protest over the decision to base the Gulf central bank in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

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.

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.

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