Bahrain’s finance minister Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa has said that he wants to place greater focus on the development of Islamic private banks.

The goal is part of his plans to make Bahrain the “centre of excellence”’ for Islamic banking.

Speaking at the Global Islamic Investment Gateway in Bahrain on 2 March, he said that although Europe has typically dominated the private banking market, he would like to see more Arab banks gaining market share and providing sharia-compliant products.

He went on to outline further areas of focus including establishing Bahrain as the regional centre for trade finance, explaining that Bahrain is ideally placed to support trade flows between the Gulf and Asia.

Developing the insurance market is another priority for Bahrain, as is increasing investment in technology to support the country’s financial sector.

Bahrain has the largest number of Islamic banks in the Gulf. However, there have been a number of mergers in recent years.

As of November 2014, total domestic assets of Bahrain’s Islamic banks stood at $14.36bn, while total assets stood at $25.1bn.

The Islamic banking sector in terms of assets has grown since 2007, when total domestic assets stood at $9.5bn and total assets stood at $16.4bn.

This stands in contrast to the wider Bahrain banking sector, which has seen its assets shrink in recent years.