Governors of GCC Central Banks and Monetary Institutions and members of the Board of Directors of the GCC Monetary Council held their second meeting on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 in Riyadh. The Council members comprise the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar and the State of Kuwait. Pursuant to the Council’s Articles of Association, the members shall hold at least six meetings a year, knowing that their second meeting was aimed to complete the setup requirements pertaining to the next phase, including the establishment of the Council’s executive body, which entered into force on March 27th, 2010.

The Monetary Council Board of Directors discussed the issues of importance listed on the agenda with regard to the executive body’s constituent phase, namely the fundamentals and the mechanism for selecting the Chief Executive, the adoption of the operational budget for the financial year ending in 2011, and the finalization of the work on the development of statistical systems necessary to achieve the Monetary Union objectives. The attendees also discussed the way to ensure that the statistics of the Monetary Union states conform with the international standards and complete the legislative framework of the current phase paving the way for the establishment of the Central Bank and the launch of the single GCC currency. The Board also examined the recommendations of the Supreme Preparatory Committee, as well as the deriving commissions and task forces and took the necessary decisions in this respect.

The board also discussed the statistical indicators for the monetary and fiscal convergence criteria approved by the Monetary Union Member States on May 12th, 2007, assuring the need and importance of the continued commitment to those standards.

On the other hand, the Council discussed the latest economic developments at both the regional and global levels, as well as the latest developments relating to the Monetary Union, and emphasized the importance of achieving the Union’s objectives as it constitutes one of the economic integration pillars to implement the GCC leaders’ directives.