GCC to stick to 2010 deadline on currency

“We had taken a strong initiative in 2001 to link all the currencies to the dollar and we are sticking to it,” Governor Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al Thani told reporters in Doha. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the three other GCC countries could still meet the 2010 deadline, he added.

“All the members are capable of entering the GCC monetary union,” he said.

He added inflation was a key issue for all the six nations. He played down the contribution of the dollar peg to inflation, saying he expected it to decrease by year-end in Qatar as the government is working hard to control prices.

Several GCC members are determined to meet a 2010 target to introduce a single currency, the council’s secretary-general said earlier yesterday. The six states in the world’s biggest oil-exporting region have been trying to negotiate a single currency by 2010, a deadline policymakers across the Gulf have said would be difficult to meet as the countries follow divergent strategies to try to cope with rising inflation and dollar weakness. (Agencies)