GCC common currency should not be called the Khaliji
Posted on 18 December 2008 with no comments from readersOrder my book online from this link
What a ridiculous name to propose for the GCC common currency! The Dubai International Financial Centre yesterday published a very sensible proposal for weighting currencies for a new currency but then ruined by suggesting the ‘Khaliji’ as its name.
The new currency needs a name that embodies solidity and strength, not something that sounds like a local supermarket chain. It was the same when the European single currency was first being discussed.
Ecu non
The French wanted it to be called the ‘ecu’ which was a ancient small silver coin apparently familiar to the natives of France. It got rejected in favor of the ‘euro’ which is short and regionally explicit.
In the same way the ‘Khaliji’ name should be rejected as meaningless. Perhaps it means something in Arabic. But then the majority of the GCC population does not speak Arabic and it is meaningless to them, as it is to the rest of the world.
A new currency needs a name which both reflects its regional base and resonates strength and stability, which is surely what the GCC with its oil wealth represents.
What would be a good name for a regional currency? The ‘petro’ perhaps, derived from Latin for the rock and a clear reference to the source of regional wealth. Or perhaps just the ‘Gulf dinar’ or ‘Gulf riyal’?
Drop the dollar peg
Anything would be better than the ‘Khaliji’! However, the GCC common currency debate is clearly ratcheting up and anything to replace the wretchedly unstable and doomed dollar is to be welcomed.
The US Federal Reserve this week signed off a policy of massive dollar weakness and the GCC does not need another bout of boom-to-bust by importing these policies to the region through the fixed currency link.
no Comments posted by readers:
your suggestion “gulf dinnar” is the same thing. Khaliji in arabic means gulf. 100% of the citizens of the gulf states are arabs so are the majority of the residents who come from the other arab states. The name needs to be meaningful to the people who own it and use it. Dropping the dollar link is a very valid point though.
Well if you want a new global currency then having a name that makes sense to the rest of the world would seem like a good idea – Khaliji does not sound like a currency to me.
Not sure that statistics would support you on the ‘majority of the residents who come from other arab states’ certainly in the UAE and Qatar they would be from India, Pakistan and Europe. But that is not the point – Khaliji does not sound right for a currency. However, it is interesting that replacing the dollar is now pretty uncontroversial, and that is far more important than a name.
Well, Krone as a word means nothing to me, yet it looks like it means alot to Danish people so they have named their currency Krone. Khaliji should first mean something to its owners, which is GCC. Next GCC will introduce it to the world.
Does not the more pertinent issue regard the fiat backing of this nascent GCC currency? Outsourcing a portion of the monetary policy to the ECB and the BOJ seems to be of questionable relevance when all these central banks are moving towards quantitative easing.