The six oil-rich Gulf Arab states have set up committees to follow up plans for a single currency before an already-agreed target of 2010, a top Gulf official said Wednesday.

Mohammad al-Mazroui, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) assistant undersecretary for economic affairs, said technical committees are studying standards for achieving divergence between the six economies by 2005 to prepare for monetary union.

"These standards include the size of the foreign currency reserves, inflation, public debt and interest rates," he told official Kuwaiti news agency KUNA in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The GCC -- a loose political and economic alliance of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar -- agreed in 2002 to set up a single currency by 2010 as part of plans for a common market.

Theses steps are needed to facilitate deeper economic ties with their main trading partner the European Union. In January, the GCC states began levying unified customs duties of five percent on foreign imports of goods and commodities under a Gulf customs union which went into effect at the time.