The Arab Gulf states agreed on Tuesday on the final draft of an accord on a monetary union which they plan to launch next year, an official statement said. Five members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council have "adopted the monetary union accord, which includes the legal and organisational framework," said the statement issued at the end of the annual GCC leaders summit in Muscat.
"It also adopted a system governing the monetary council," the statement said, according to AFP.
GCC finance ministers meeting on Tuesday during the summit had drafted the final version of the monetary union accord which is intended to be implemented next year, followed by the launch of a single currency, a GCC official said.
The accord provides for the creation of a monetary council ahead of establishing a GCC central bank which will be charged with issuing the future single currency and completing the technical steps of the monetary union.
GCC leaders stuck to the 2010 date during their previous summit in Doha, although Oman pulled out of the plan and Kuwait decided to part ways with a GCC collective currency peg to the US dollar. GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said the location of the central bank would be decided in mid-2009.
