Abstract:
Creation of a common currency area is one of the cheri shed
goals of t he Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries right
from the beginning. This goal was formally declared soon
after the foundation of the GCC in 1981. The member states
of the GCC are moving towards launching a single currency
by January 2010, an advanced step towards monetary union .
These countries are characterized with a great degree of
s imilarities whether political, economic , or social. This
provides an advantage many regional economic group s lack.
Using formal and informal criteria, it has been established
whether GCC is an optimum currency area (OCA) . Based on the
traditiona l OCA criteria, it has been f ound that GCC
countri es are yet to fulfill t he necessary pre- conditions
for the establi shment of Currency Union (CO) . The SWOT
methodology utilized in t hi s study presents a list of
activities t hat must be thought of carefully before and
after the year 2010, when the singl e currency is p l a nned to
circul ate . Time is approaching fast, thus, GCC states
s hould take serious steps in the remaining few years. A
quali ta ti ve approach, is applied to check the readiness of
t he Gulf r egion fo r common currency.
According to the data ana l ysis, the Gulf region is not
ready to launch a common currency in January 2010. There
are many barriers that must be minimized to launch a common
c u ~rency in near the future.
