The 13th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consultative summit held in Riyadh last week paid only lip service to econ-omic issues facing the six-nation group. The leaders used the meeting to discuss emerging political and security matters engulfing the region, notably developments in Bahrain and Yemen.
Nevertheless, the final communique touched on the need to resolve outstanding issues related to implementation of the customs union project. For obvious reasons, GCC officials feel embarrassed about the lack of progress on this integration project many years after it came into effect. Conversely, real progress has occurred in subsequent integration schemes, notably the Gulf Common Market (GCM), which started in 2008.
In retrospect, the customs union project went into effect in 2003 with the original plan calling for its full implementation in a span of two years. Yet, the GCC's 26th summit held in Abu Dhabi in late 2005 pushed the deadline back by two more years, but that didn't help much. No fresh deadlines were placed until very recently or in the run-up to the 13th consultative summit.
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