Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are vying to be chosen as the base for the headquarters of the central bank, said Naser Al Kaud, Deputy Assistant Secretary-General of the GCC General-Secretariat.
Deciding on the venue for the GCC apex bank has been one of the major hurdles standing before the Gulf’s monetary union plan that includes a single currency in the near future.
Gulf leaders are due to meet on May 5 in Riyadh to discuss the location after failing to come to a compromise at their annual summit in December.
"Let’s hope that it will be decided. The last time we discussed it was in March and at that time four of the countries were still interested. To my knowledge there has been no change," Kaud said. Only Kuwait is not interested in hosting the bank, he said.
The key hurdle facing Gulf monetary union is building the institutions and securing the political will to push it through, analysts have said.
The six convergence criteria, such as achieving public debt ratio of less than 60 per cent, have mainly been met.
"I think a decision would help to speed up the process for establishing the monetary council."