Gulf Cooperation Council States May Need Three Years for Customs Union

The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council may need as many as three years for full implementation of a regional customs union agreement, Kuwait’s Finance Minister said.

“Not all countries are ready,” Mustafa al-Shimali told reporters late yesterday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “We need more time to implement the remaining items.”

The region’s customs union has been hindered by differences over how to distribute revenue earned from tariffs, al-Shimali said. The group also needs to remove some tariffs on specific goods, he said.

Gulf countries agreed on a single currency in 2001, saying it would help integrate their economies. Their original timetable would have seen a new monetary unit in place this year. The deadline was missed after the global financial crisis and the U.A.E. and Oman withdrew from the currency union.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain took a step on March 30 toward a single currency when their central bank governors held the first meeting of the Monetary Council, a precursor to a united central bank. Kuwait’s dinar is pegged to a basket of currencies while the other three countries have a dollar peg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wael Mahdi in Jeddah wmahdi@bloomberg.net.

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