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No Plans to Rejoin Monetary Union

“We have had some issues with the GCC Monetary Union, and we don’t see the possibility of any compromise now,” Al Suwaidi told reporters on the sidelines of Arab Central Bank governors’ meeting in the captial.

In May of this year, the UAE had walked out of the talks to constitute the much-debated and delayed GCC monetary union following differences of opinions on various issues, including the location of the proposed Central Bank.

Although the UAE, which has emerged as the region’s financial hub, was keen to play host of the Central Bank, the GCC leaders chose the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh instead. Despite being one of the founding members of the co-operation council, the UAE does not host any of the GCC institutions.

The Central Bank governor denied that the country was discussing its various points of contentions before rejoining the union at a later date.

“We have made our position known long back. I don’t want to go into those issues again now,” Al Suwaidi said. “There are no such discussions going on at present.”

“We don’t want to become stumbling block in the formation of the GCC Monetary Union, and have given the go-ahead to our brothers to form it,’’ he said.

Two years ago, Oman had also said it would not be joining the single currency. Interestingly, head of Central Bank of Oman, who also attended the meeting, reiterated his country’s stance. Hence, the proposed monetary union will have only four members — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

With the absence of UAE’s dynamic and open economy, the four-member monetary union is destined to be a project with a gaping hole.

· ramavarman@khaleejtimes.ae