CAIRO, May 26 (KUNA) — Governor of the Bahrain Monetary Agency, Rasheed Al-Miraj said Thursday that the GCC unified currency plan is proceeding according to the set program, to complete in 2010.

Al-Miraj said in statements to KUNA, after his participation in the Conference on Banking, Finance and Insurance in the Arab World, that the next five years would witness great changes in the monetary sector in the GCC.

He added that the merging of currencies in the Arab world is in its beginning stages, due to the variation in currency production from one country to the other. He added that the monetary sector requires additional time to stabilize.

He added, issue of currency requires investments and developed human

resources to compete with international markets.

Al-Miraj highlighted that central banks in the GCC do not control other banks, but guide them and set guidelines they should implement, as a means of securing the banking sector in the country.

On the issue of Islamic banks, Al-Miraj said that those banks took up the path of investments, resulting in accelerated development in the gulf and the Arab world.

The conference had reviewed several experiences in the field of merging and takeover of large companies in foreign and Arab countries, from Bahrain, UAE, Lebanon, Qatar, Japan and Pakistan.

The conference also discussed the insurance sector in the Arab world and the possibility of privatization in this sector.