* Four Gulf states want to host common central bank
* Gulf Arab leaders due to decide location at May 5 meeting
* Decision crucial in moving ahead with Gulf monetary union
By Daliah Merzaban
DUBAI, April 29 (Reuters) - Four Gulf Arab states want to host a common regional central bank, a senior Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) official said on Wednesday, ahead of a meeting of leaders next week to choose the location.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain are vying to be chosen as the base for the headquarters of the central bank, said Naser al-Kaud, deputy assistant secretary-general of the GCC General-Secretariat.
Deciding on the venue has been one of the major political hurdles standing before the Gulf region's monetary union plan that includes a single currency sometime after 2010 -- the original deadline that the GCC this year conceded it would miss.
Gulf Arab leaders are due to meet on May 5 in Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss the location after failing to come to a compromise at their annual summit in December.
"Let's hope that it will be decided," Kaud told Reuters by telephone. "The last time we discussed it was in March and at that time four of the countries were still interested. To my knowledge there has been no change."
Only Kuwait is not interested in hosting the bank, he said.
The key hurdle facing Gulf monetary union is building the institutions and securing the political will to push it through, analysts have said.
The six convergence criteria, such as achieving public debt ratio of less than 60 percent, have mainly been met.
"I think a decision would help to speed up the process for establishing the monetary council. We can't establish it without the location," Kaud said.
Gulf states have until December to ratify a monetary union agreement and a charter governing the monetary council -- both of which were approved at a Gulf leaders summit in December.
The monetary council, a precursor to a future central bank, would be responsible for deciding on a new timetable to issue a common currency, the GCC said last month, acknowledging that the 2010 deadline would not be met. Oman dropped out of monetary union plans in 2006 and Kuwait dropped its dollar peg in 2007, throwing convergence efforts into disarray in an oil-exporting region where currencies have long been pegged to the U.S. dollar.
(Reporting by Daliah Merzaban; Editing by Erica Billingham)