Kuwait lawmakers approve joining Gulf currency
Implementation of monetary union could take 10 years, official says
Kuwait: Kuwait's parliament unanimously approved yesterday a plan to join a Gulf monetary union which a top official said could take up to 10 years to implement.
Saudi Arabia has already secured parliamentary approval for the project, initially envisioned for 2010. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has acknowledged it would miss the deadline and policymakers have urged the other participating countries, Qatar and Bahrain, to ratify it before year-end.
"Issuing the [Gulf] currency, as the central bank governor clarified, will take a long time and could reach up to 10 years," Kuwait Foreign Minister Shaikh Mohammad Al Salem Al Sabah told parliament shortly before the vote.
The project suffered a heavy blow earlier this year, when the UAE followed fellow GCC member Oman and pulled out as Saudi Arabia did not want to give up hosting the new monetary authority.
Bahrain was on track to ratify the project ahead of the Gulf rulers' meeting in Kuwait on Monday to Wednesday, which is expected to debate the remit of the common monetary council, a precursor to the regional central bank.
Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah, the GCC secretary general, has said that Qatar had already ratified the union plan although Qatari officials have declined to comment.
Most countries in the world's top oil-exporting region already peg their currencies to the dollar but a range of technical issues such as harmonisation of banking regulations must be tackled in order for them to share a new currency.
