Bahrain FDI grows 160 per cent in 2017

21 February 2018
The information and communication technology sector (ICT) accounted for 54 per cent of Bahrain's total FDI in 2017

Bahrain attracted foreign direct investments (FDI) worth $733m in 2017, an increase of 160 per cent compared to the previous year.

Information and communication technology sector (ICT) accounted for 54 per cent of the total FDI in 2017, mainly on account of the decision made by US-based Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build three data centres in Bahrain.

“Every dollar [of these investments] was hard fought,” Zayed Alzayani, Bahrain’s Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, told the ongoing GCC Financial Forum in Bahrain.

Alzayani said Bahrain’s focus on efficiency has been a key factor that has helped it attract investments in 2017.

“We are the most liberalised [GCC state] with only 2 per cent of business activities restricted to Bahraini nationals, we’ve streamlined the process of setting up a new business, we have a proper banking and legal system and modern infrastructure and logistics sector that allows us to be well-linked with our neighbours,” explains Alzayani.

He also underscored the Bahraini workforce’s willingness to adopt to changes as well as the availability of talent as a very important, if not the most important factor helping Bahrain attract foreign investments.

The executive said the government will be focusing on attracting more FDIs into its IT sector going forward and that he expects the sector’s contribution to Bahrain’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) to continue to expand in the future.

MEED understands FDIs in Bahrain averaged BD349.5m ($928m) between 1998 and 2016, reaching an all time high of BD1.4bn in 2013.

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