Marcopolis presents the Bahrain Report focused on the investments, doing business, economy and other topics featuring interviews with key executives and government officials. The sectors under review are industry, telecom, banking sector, ICT, investments and more.
What is your personal vision and how are you going to approach these challenges ? (Demographics)
Bahrain does have a growing population, and for sure our challenge is to ensure that those entering the job market in future years will have real prospects for gainful employment, which fully meets the aspirations established in Vision 2030 for a doubling of household income. In order to achieve this we must encourage new business development, we must encourage new investment from both foreign and domestic sources, we must encourage a growth in productivity, and we must promote the private sector by opening up new markets for their products and services.
My personal vision is fully aligned with the Vision 2030 and the approach taken by the National Economic Strategy (NES), and in which the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC) is a major participant. I see Bahrain in the future as being a prosperous, international financial and services centre, underpinned by a robust industrial sector producing high-value added outputs, and supported by a legal and administrative system which is second to none, and with the Bahraini being the employee of choice, as an educated, trained and productive contributor.
I see the role of the MOIC as being that of regulator and facilitator, we encourage, support and direct through our industrial, commercial and trade policies, but we are not directly involved in the productive processes. I would, therefore, articulate our approach to achieving Vision 2030, as orchestrating the commercial and industrial infrastructure and incentives to encourage inward investment and organic domestic growth in the sectors and clusters, where Bahrain is considered as having a competitive advantage, and expanding downstream growth, all with the objective of diversifying the Bahraini economy.
This translates into creating an enabling environment of laws and regulations, and improving customer services, so that entry into and out of the market is efficient. It involves providing industrial land and using zoning and planning parameters to regulate licensing. It involves encouraging more feedstock from the primary producers to be made available to downstream manufacturers.
It involves developing new international markets and maximizing the opportunities presented by our trade policy initiatives. It involves working within a national committee to encourage the development of SMEs. It also involves MOIC working with the Economic Development Board, Tamkeen and other Government Ministries and organizations, to provide incentives and support mechanism to encourage the private sector.
I would also point to the proposed new Economic City, which MOIC has been working on together with international advisors to produce a pre-feasibility study, as being one of the major activities which the Ministry is involved in with a view to expanding and diversifying the economy. In particular since the design brief of the proposed new Economic City would be to create a paradigm shift in terms of the economy, creating new industrial and business clusters.
How realistic are these goals ? (Vision 2030 goals)
Vision 2030 goals are demanding, but most defiantly achievable, and in order to achieve those goals we have a road map in the form of the National Economic Strategy (NES), which is intended to get us to where we want to be.
At the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC) we have been engaged over these past months in a pre-feasibility study for a new Economic City, which if approved would produce a paradigm shift for our economy and be a significant contributor to the NES in achieving the ambitions of the Vision 2030.
Indeed the additional resources which are being committed to Bahrain over the coming 10 years, through the GCC support mechanism, will undoubtedly enhance our ability to deliver on the challenges of housing and infrastructure, and help a long way in improving the overall situation of the Bahraini population and their ability to meet the challenges of the current and future job market.
We have already achieved so much in the past in diversifying the economy, Bahrain is the most diversified economy in the region, with oil contributing less than 15% to our Gross Domestic product; we have already come a long way up the ladder in terms of implementing the plans for the future, with many of the NES support initiatives already under way, but as Thomas Henry Huxley, put it, ‘the rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher’. I have no doubt, that our Vision 2030 goals are realistic, and I am equally confident of our ability to reach the top of our 2030 ladder.