Gulf Arab rulers will decide the final timetable for monetary union next year, and not at a summit in Qatar in December, a Saudi newspaper newspaper quoted a Gulf official as saying on Monday.

Saudi Central Bank Governor Hamad al-Sayyari told reporters on Saturday he and other regional policymakers had agreed to leave the decision on whether to delay monetary union to a meeting of Gulf Arab rulers.

The rulers meet next in December, but Sayyari did not make clear when the decision would be taken.

"Finance ministers and central bank governors will bring their assessment of the monetary union plan to the heads of state at their meeting in 2008," the semi-official Al-Riyadh daily quoted an unnamed Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) official as saying.

The GCC is a regional economic and political bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.

The rulers of the six states meet at the end of every year and had agreed to create a single currency by 2010. The paper said Sayyari had been referring to the 2008 summit. - Reuters