Gulf Times – Majority in GCC support single currency union

A survey by the Social and Economic Research Institute (Sesri) at Qatar University has found that a good number of Gulf Co-operation Council nationals think that their countries will benefit from being members of the proposed GCC single currency and that the project will create faster economic growth in their respective countries.

The survey, which was conducted between December 2010 and January 2011 among a total of 2,692 respondents across five GCC countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait - attempted to seek the opinions of the GCC citizens about the single currency, their awareness and knowledge of the project as well as their support of or opposition to the single currency project.

The survey found that majority of the citizens in Qatar (85%), Bahrain (82%), the UAE (84%) and Saudi Arabia (83%) believed that their countries would benefit from being a member of the GCC single currency while Kuwaitis, on the other hand are less certain about such benefit as 49% of the Kuwaiti respondents said that their country would benefit from being a member of the single currency.

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