{"id":73796,"date":"2026-02-06T12:56:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=73796"},"modified":"2026-02-06T15:39:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:09:25","slug":"what-is-the-gulf-cooperation-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-the-gulf-cooperation-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Gulf Cooperation Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Gulf Cooperation Council Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have signed the Terms of Reference for a Free Trade Agreement in New Delhi.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Gulf Cooperation Council<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a regional <\/span><b>political and economic alliance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> established in 1981.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Member countries:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Objective:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> To foster economic, security, cultural, and social cooperation among its members.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Background:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It was formed in response to escalating regional tensions, particularly the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/1979-islamic-revolution-fall-of-the-pahlavi-dynasty-in-iran\/\" target=\"_blank\">Iranian Revolution<\/a><\/strong> (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980\u20131988).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Headquarters:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Organizational Structure of the Gulf Cooperation Council<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Supreme council<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>highest authority of the GCC<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, composed of the heads of the member states.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its <\/span><b>presidency rotates alphabetically<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> according to the names of the countries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It convenes in a regular <\/span><b>session annually.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Ministerial council<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>composed of foreign ministers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or their representatives from member states.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>proposes policies and implements decisions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Supreme Council.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Secretariat general:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Its responsibilities include preparing <\/span><b>studies to enhance cooperation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, coordination, and integration in joint Gulf projects and initiatives.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>India \u2013GCC Free Trade Agreement<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Key exports from India to GCC include engineering <\/span><b>goods, rice, textiles, machinery, gems and jewelry.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Key sectors of imports from GCC primarily comprise <\/span><b>crude oil, LNG, petrochemicals, and precious metals such as gold.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsonair.gov.in\/india-and-gulf-cooperation-council-sign-terms-of-reference-for-a-free-trade-agreement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">News On Air<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gulf Cooperation Council is a regional political and economic alliance established in 1981. Read more about Gulf Cooperation Council, Member Countries, Objective, Headquarter, News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":86284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3745,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-73796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-gulf-cooperation-council","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86378,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73796\/revisions\/86378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}