Will maintain dollar peg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GGA&refer=home
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates has pulled out of the planned monetary union of five oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies after expressing reservations about the choice of Saudi Arabia as the location of the common central bank.
“The U.A.E. has decided not to be part of the Gulf monetary union agreement,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Abu Dhabi was cited as saying by the state-run news agency WAM. The country will maintain the dirham’s peg to the U.S. dollar, WAM cited the central bank governor, Sultan bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, as saying.
The decision calls into question the viability of the six- member Gulf Cooperation Council’s 2001 agreement to form a European Union-style monetary union. Oman pulled out in 2007. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain are still part of the project.
“The single currency is dead,” said Eckart Woertz, an economist with the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “It’s like France saying it wants to pull out of the euro.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GGA&refer=home
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates has pulled out of the planned monetary union of five oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies after expressing reservations about the choice of Saudi Arabia as the location of the common central bank.
“The U.A.E. has decided not to be part of the Gulf monetary union agreement,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Abu Dhabi was cited as saying by the state-run news agency WAM. The country will maintain the dirham’s peg to the U.S. dollar, WAM cited the central bank governor, Sultan bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, as saying.
The decision calls into question the viability of the six- member Gulf Cooperation Council’s 2001 agreement to form a European Union-style monetary union. Oman pulled out in 2007. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain are still part of the project.
“The single currency is dead,” said Eckart Woertz, an economist with the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “It’s like France saying it wants to pull out of the euro.”
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