nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will discuss an option to peg their planned single currency to a basket, Kuwait Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Salem Al-Sabah said Tuesday. “It is not necessary for the GCC currency to be linked to a certain currency. It could be one currency or a basket of currencies. And this will be discussed among the Gulf countries,” he told parliament. Parliament delayed Tuesday voting on monetary union to Dec. 8 as MPs needed more time to assess economic implications of the project. Kuwait's Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali told parliament Tuesday during a debate on the ratification of the Gulf monetary council pact that the Gulf single currency was not happening tomorrow or the day after. It needs sufficient time. Gulf states have set the start of next year to launch the single currency, but recently there have been increasing signals that the target date is unrealistic. Earlier this month, the governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Mohammad Al-Jasser, said the launch of the currency was set to be delayed. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), signed a pact in June to create a joint monetary council, which would later become a GCC central bank. The remaining two GCC members, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, have refused to sign up and withdrawn from the project. All GCC currencies are pegged to the dollar except for the dinar of Kuwait, which in May 2007 dropped the dollar for a basket of currencies to fight soaring inflation. During Tuesday's parliamentary debate, a number of MPs expressed concern about the impact of a GCC single currency on the dinar and domestic economy. Kuwait is due to host the annual GCC summit on Dec. 14, Sheikh Mohammad said. Saudi Arabia has already ratified the pact while the three other states are expected to do so before the end of the year.
