Customs issues, like distribution of custom receipts, remain to be a stumbling bloc in the planned six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) customs union, officials said on Saturday. The GCC finance ministers held Saturday the 84th meeting of Financial and Economic Cooperation Committee under Kuwait's chairmanship at the GCC headquarters in Riyadh. The delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the meeting was led by Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, the Minister of Finance. The GCC's attempts over the past 29 years to emulate the European Union's economic integration model have been dogged by delays in a monetary union plan. The introduction of a customs union in 2003 had been hailed by officials as a major achievement countering critics claims that the Gulf Arab bloc would be unable to realize economic integration in the world's biggest oil exporting region. But differences remain and trucks transporting goods have been held up for days, an issue which has cast fresh doubts about the efficiency of the customs union plan. In an inaugural address, Mustafa Jassim Al Shamali, the Kuwaiti Minister of Finance called on GCC finance ministers to benefit from the decision taken by the leaders of GCC countries at their 30th session on the extension of the transitional period of the Customs Union, expressing confidence in the ability of GCC finance ministers to reach an agreement on withstanding issues in the GCC Customs Union. “The issue of custom revenue and distribution is not a thorny issue to be resolved as long as there is a will and sincere intention to reach a compromise formula acceptable to all member states,” he said, stressing that any formula or mechanism to be agreed upon between the member states has to be reviewed after two years of the agreed mechanism. He described the solutions in the formula prepared by the GCC General Secretariat on completion of the Customs Union requirements as good and commendable, especially as it emphasized that the custom revenue of the GCC represents a minor portion of the total revenues of member states and it is easy to agree on the distribution mechanism of any sort. However, some GCC officials say the UAE is unhappy with a quota of receipts proposed by the GCC secretariat but some stress that a bigger issue would be to scrap red tape at border crossings. GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah cautioned at a meeting of finance ministers of the bloc - which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar - against stopping in the midst of “transitional phase of the customs union.” “The goal for everyone is to get to its final status (by the start of 2011) and achieve greater and better economic benefits than what has been achieved up to now.” “Extending the transitional phase may, God forbid, expose the Gulf customs union ... to a retreat and to the loss of the main gains for member states in the economic field as well as weaken the credibility of their decisions for commercial partners,” he said at the meeting on Saturday. This task does not promise to be easy, the GCC officials argue, given that most truck drivers in GCC are migrant workers and the bloc has yet to create a more flexible and uniform identification system for its massive non-native workforce. The meeting will set the agenda for a GCC summit in Riyadh next week.
