Doing Business With Bahrain (global Market Briefings)

GLOBAL MARKET BRIEFINGS Doing Business with A Guide to Investment Opportunities and Business Practice SECOND EDITION Series editor: Anthony Shoult Consultant editor: Dr Marat Terterov Associate publisher: Jonathan Wallace Published in association with: Economic Development Board, Bahrain Big On Group UK Trade & Investment Logo GMB Publisher’s note Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is accurate at the time of going to press and neither the publishers nor any of the authors, editors, contributors or sponsors can accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the editors, authors, the publisher or any of the contributors or sponsors. Users and readers of this publication may copy or download portions of the material herein for personal use, and may include portions of this material in internal reports and/or reports to customers, and on an occasional and infrequent basis individual articles from the material, provided that such articles (or portions of articles) are attributed to this publication by name, the individual contributor of the portion used and GMB Publishing Ltd. Users and readers of this publication shall not reproduce, distribute, display, sell, publish, broadcast, repurpose, or circulate the material to any third party, or create new collective works for resale or for redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works, without the prior written permission of GMB Publishing Ltd. GMB Publishing Ltd. 120 Pentonville Road London N1 9JN United Kingdom www.globalmarketbriefings.com This edition first published 2005 by GMB Publishing Ltd. © GMB Publishing Ltd. and contributors Hardcopy ISBN 1-905050-02-X E-book ISBN 1905050526 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Contents Foreword HE Abdulla Bin Hassan Saif Minister of Finance and National Economy and Acting Chief Executive Officer, Economic Development Board xvii Foreword Mr Esam Janahi, Chairman Bahrain Financial Holding Company BSC (c) xix List of Contributors xxi Part One: Country Background 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Geography and History 3 Economic Development Board The Political System 6 Economic Development Board Bahrain’s Economy 11 Denzil Pereira, Senior Economist, Arab Bank plc (OBU), Bahrain Foreign Trade 21 Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Kingdom of Bahrain The Bahrain–US Free Trade Agreement 30 Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Kingdom of Bahrain Part Two: The Investment Climate 2.1 2.2 2.3 Current Strategies in Attracting Investment and Fostering Development Economic Development Board Investment Flows in Bahrain Rima M Bhatia, Group Economist, Gulf International Bank, B.S.C. The Development of Corporate Governance in Bahrain Dominic O’Neil and Roly Denman, Trowers & Hamlins Law Firm, Bahrain 41 48 58<