Mubasher: Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain need further time to apply the value-added tax (VAT), Abdelhak Senhadji, deputy director of the fiscal affairs department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said.

The four GCC countries will be technically and politically ready to apply the VAT within around a year and a half, Senhadji added.

The IMF is working with those countries as part of a GCC wide agreement struck in 2016 to put the VAT into effect across the six GCC countries.

Early in January 2018, only Saudi Arabia and the UAE started applying the VAT through imposing 5% on most of goods and services.

“The fact is that there was political resistance in some countries and they were not ready technically to introduce VAT, so the UAE and Saudi put a lot of resources to get ready for the VAT while the other countries have not,” Senhadji, noted.