Gulf joint monetary council to meet in March -QNA

Gulf Arab central bank governors will hold the first meeting of their joint monetary council on March 30, the next step towards monetary union, the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

The governors of the four Gulf states planning monetary union - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait - will discuss legal and administrative issues in order "to speed up the single currency," Abdulrahman Al Attiyah, the bloc's secretary-general, was quoted as saying by Qatar's state news agency QNA.Rulers from the world's top oil exporting region endorsed the much-delayed monetary union in December despite the withdrawal last year of the United Arab Emirates -- the bloc's second-largest economy - and Oman, which pulled out in 2006.At the meeting, the governors will form a board of directors for the project, Attiyah said.