Gulf to discuss speeding up single currency plan

DOHA (Reuters) - Gulf Arab finance ministers will discuss a plan to speed up a delayed monetary union project before their rulers meet on Monday, the secretary general of Gulf Cooperation Council economic bloc said on Sunday.

The finance ministers will prepare the agenda for the summit, which is under intense market scrutiny after the United Arab Emirates, the bloc's second largest economy, called for an end to region's currency pegs to the tumbling dollar.

"The ministers will discuss the GCC single currency," Abdul-Rahman al-Attiyah told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting in Qatar's capital Doha.

Asked whether there was any plan to speed up the project, he said: "Yes." The plan would be designed to meet the 2010 deadline for monetary union, he said.

The minister would also discuss a customs union, monetary union and creating a common market in the world's biggest oil exporting region, Attiyah said.

He declined to comment on whether dollar weakness and market speculation about the demise of the region's dollar pegs were on the agenda.