During the last three decades, there has been an increasing drive in developing countries towards integration, characterized by an equally apparent tendency towards the institutionalization of this attitude. This is a direct result of the realization that their future development as well as their ability to break the vicious circle of their dependence on the developed world depend on the extent of their success in attaining collective self-reliance. It was this realization and the futility of past integration efforts that motivated the six Arab Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to establish in 1981 the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) in an attempt to find a common basis on which economic development could be carried out on a regional basis.