MUSCAT: Leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) began their two-day summit conference here yesterday denouncing Israel’s brutal military aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and calling for a united stand on the blitz that has killed at least 327 people since Saturday.
“The summit comes at a time when the Palestinians besieged in Gaza are facing barbarous Israeli aggression. This demands from us to take a unified stand on this aggression to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians,” Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani said in an arrival statement.
Sultan Qaboos of Oman opened the summit at Bustan Palace, urging greater cooperation among nations to overcome the impact of global financial crisis. He stressed the need to balance the demands of oil producers and consumers. Such cooperation should be “on the basis of stable prices that will not burden the consumers, does not harm the producers and (help them) maintain their economic development,” Qaboos said.
The call came as the GCC — comprising Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — has grappled with the impact of oil prices that have fallen by about 70 percent from their mid-July highs of nearly $150 per barrel.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah is leading the Saudi delegation to the summit. The Saudi Press Agency said King Abdullah met with the Qatari emir after the opening session.
Qatar has offered to host an emergency Arab summit on the Gaza crisis on Friday but some Arab countries have expressed their reservations, saying it would be fruitless.
“The ministerial council has not decided about the proposed extraordinary Arab summit, and has referred the matter to the emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Wednesday,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said. “There is no point in attending an Arab summit of statements, without having the right conditions for success and influence,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted the prince as saying.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit was quoted as saying yesterday that such a summit “could be dangerous and subject to criticism, especially if it does not result in practical measures.”
Some GCC delegates attending the Muscat summit criticized Egypt for allegedly denying entry for trucks carrying relief supplies for the Palestinians in Gaza.
The summit leaders discussed a spate of political, economic, security and social issues and heard a report from GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah during a closed session following the opening ceremony, SPA said.
UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said the summit would discuss the latest regional and international developments in order to adopt a joint stand in dealing with them. “We hope the summit would bring about a new era in joint GCC work.”
GCC had planned to use the summit to discuss moving ahead with plans for a unified currency by 2010, setting up a regional central bank and ways of dealing with the global economic crisis. Al-Attiyah said the council had agreed on the issue of monetary union, but had yet to determine the location of the proposed regional central bank.
The heads of state will also have to resolve how to tackle the different currency pegs used by the other five GCC members. Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all have currencies pegged to the US dollar but Kuwait’s is pegged to a basket of currencies.
While the leaders are expected to discuss the current financial meltdown, analysts and economists are watching to see what steps the officials will take to push along a plan for a GCC common currency.
Also important are their efforts to finalize details for the precursor to the bloc’s new central bank. “This meeting is quite important because they will have to outline what they’re going to be doing prior to 2010, and they will also have to come out quite concretely about what is to come of that deadline,” said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Saudi British Bank.
Analysts and economists have said the Gulf Arab region’s vast oil wealth and the budget surpluses realized from this past year’s surge in crude prices will help cushion the countries from the worst of the economic downturn that has hammered the rest of the world.
The Institute of International Finance, in a recent study, estimated that GCC countries’ economic growth would slow from 5.8 percent in 2008 to 4.2 percent in 2009. The figure is markedly higher than the 0.9 percent global economic growth rate forecast by the World Bank earlier this month.
Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s economic powerhouse, recently unveiled a budget reflecting projections of its first deficit since 2002. In the last fiscal year, the country realized a surplus of $157 billion, largely on oil revenues. The Kingdom, however, has ramped up spending, allocating more funds to infrastructure development, education and health care as it looks to diversify its economy.
— With input from agencies
