Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Mohammed al-Jassar claims he has not lost hope that the UAE and Oman will rejoin the GCC common currency (Gulfie) project. Last month, the Omani minister of economy completely rejected any chance that his country will return to the project. All GCC states tie their currencies to the US dollar, with the exception of Kuwait which ties its currency to a basket of major currencies.
I can categorically state here that Oman and the UAE will not return to the Gulf currency for some years. I can also assure you that I am pushing back the date for the start of the common Gulf currency to at least 2017, most likely beyond that. A few years ago I had predicted that the joint currency will not be born before 2015 (their official plan was for 2010, which I thought was absurd, and they changed it last December to 2015). Now, based on my highly educated guessing ability on this issue particularly, I push the whole thing off a few years more.
My Monetary Rule: based on experience, I automatically add more years to any announced deadline for monetary (and other economic) issues in the Gulf (and the Middle East in general):
- Add five years (or more, sometimes much more) to the initial officially announced date.
- Add three years (or more, depending) to the first revised officially announced date.
- For the second revision: I will tell you when we get there, but it usually means DOA.
- (For the wider inter-Arab plans: I would add a quarter century to the initial date, and then I would revise it to when hell freezes over).
mhg
1 comment:
One thing I wonder, why the Arab countries peg their currencies to the dollar and are tied to the Americans and their oil mongering, and do not get rid of the dollar and peg their currencies to the euro, sterling or the swiss franc, the yen or the rouble?
greetings from Europe,
chris eblana
www.eblanademocraticmove.blogspot.com
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