Industry minister attends roundtable in London

London, Feb. 29 (BNA): The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism Zayed Rashid Alzayani participated in the round table meeting which is organized by the Arab British Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Bahrain Embassy in the United Kingdom on the occasion of celebrating bicentennial between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United Kingdom. During the meeting that was attended by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa and a number of members of the British companies and institutions interested in trade with Bahrain, the minister delivered a speech stated that "Our two nations have enjoyed formal relations for many years as evidenced by our bicentennial celebrations in this year. However, exactly 200 years prior the first East India company presence was established in Bahrain in 1616." He added that "the Concorde first trip was from London to Bahrain, some of you may know that Bahrain is the base of the British Naval Command operations in the Arabian Gulf, or that close to 1,000 British interests benefit from having operations in Bahrain. However, I am confident that a very few of you would know that Sir Alex Ferguson first official trip with Manchester United outside of the UK was to Bahrain. As a devote Manchester United fan I even did not know that fact until I heard it from him in 2013. More importantly, Bahrain is today the home of more than 10,000 British Citizens, who have ranked Bahrain as first in the GCC and fourth in the world according to the recent HSBC surveys. The survey was scored highly on disposable income, work life balance, health care, making friends, tolerance and integration with local population. Moreover, in 2014 more than 11,000 British visas were issued to Bahrainis of 1,000 of them were student visas." The minister said that "I joined public service in December 2014, but prior to that, I had spent 22 years in the private sector where I had not only worked extensively with British companies but also actively invested in the British economy. Nevertheless, today despite all the long-standing relations and the long history we have with the United Kingdom, the UK stands as our ninth trading partner, with a total trade figure for 2015 of $548 million. We lived a turbulent 2015 to say the least, whether be it the sharp drop in oil prices or the geopolitical circumstances that the area is passing through, nevertheless, we still managed to conclude the year with a 3.2% growth in our economy and a GDP of $ 31 billion." He pointed that The government of Bahrain has embarked on new reform to make Bahrain a truly viable candidate for foreign businesses, direct investment inflow and international tourism. The recent fall in oil prices has left us with no choice but to further diversify our economy through stimulating expansion of the private sector and its contribution within our GDP. True evidence can be drawn from the recent laws passed in October 2015, whereby seven out of 11 had direct impact on reform in the economic and financial landscape. In addition many other internal ministerial decrees have resulted in reengineering our internal processes and requirements to facilitate doing business in Bahrain. Such reform combined with our strategic location in the middle of the gulf and more importantly with close access to the largest market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and aided with our local Bahraini human capital, serves the perfect recipe for regional access. It is our genuine aim to transform Bahrain into a regional, manufacturing and logistical GCC hub and we invite all British interests to take a closer look at what we offer. We have identified our sectorial priorities and these could be summarized as follows; Financial services Professional & industrial services Logistics Education & training Manufacturing ICT Tourism & leisure The minister noted that "we have revised both our commercial registration and companies’ law, with the aim to modernize and simplify them. The new laws we have introduced shelve companies, flexibility in capital requirements, eliminating unnecessary requirements such as minimum capital requirements, competing interest consent and personal qualifications to present an easy, transparent and smooth path to registering new businesses as well as expanding existing ones." "Another achievement we are extremely proud of was the launch of our fully integrated registration system better known as Business Licensing Integrated System (BLIS) in May 2015, which on 25th November 2015 received the best GCC company registration system award. We aim to conclude our third and last phase of the system’s development by March 2016 with the ultimate goal of issuing a commercial registration within three minutes." The minister added. In regard to Bahrain’s industry, the minister said: " we reformed our industrial land law with the aim to make government industrial parks more accessible and industrial land more attainable. We realize that no industry can thrive without land and for that, we had to move quick to provide that vital element of the industrial process. We have issued a new price structure whereby industrial land is available for $2.65 per square meter per annum in all the seven industrial estates managed by MoIC. In early 2016, we have announced the merger of the Bahrain International Investment Park with the Bahrain Logistic Zone into combined industrial estate covering area of 3.5 million square meters. Being located in such an estate grants you the right for 5 years Bahrainization exemption, guaranteed tax free for 10 years, and free zone status. Building on our industrial commitment, we have started development of our East Sitra Industrial Estate, which shall be by far the largest Industrial Estate in Bahrain. With a total area of 7.3 million square kilometers, we plan to allocate land on phase one spanning an area 500,000 square kilometers as early as 2018." The minister added that "we are taking a fresh look at the MSME sector where we feel the future growth opportunity lies. Our goal is to convert as many young Bahraini men and women from being job seekers to being job providers. For that, we have embarked on many initiatives such as the establishment of an Export Development Agency that should be operational by June 2016." The purpose of this agency is four fold; Advisory services Financial planning and support Data base building and networking Export financing To complete this cycle only as recent as last week, the Bahrain Bourse oversight was moved to MoIC such that we may be able to accompany our young entrepreneurs throughout their complete cycle from a startup to being a publicly listed and traded company. To further enhance this vehicle, we are in the final stages of launching an AIMs market on our Bourse to allow listing of smaller businesses on a parallel market to our main market. The goal is simply to make it easier and quicker for smaller companies to access public funding. "Our drive to expand our tourism sector in the economy is also self-evident. With Manama announced as the 2016 GCC capital of tourism, an initiative newly introduced and adopted for the first time in Bahrain, we are confident of growing our inter GCC tourism flow. Our recently launched tourism strategy built on what we call 4As; Awareness, Attractions, Access and Accommodation aims to double tourism’s contribution to our GDP by the end of 2018. In addition, our recent merger of the Tourism & Exhibition sectors into a single Authority in order to maximize synergies between the two constitutes a major pillar of our forward looking tourism strategy by expanding into the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions business better known as MICE. Our plans to construct a new exhibition & convention center are well under way, with the ambition to position Bahrain not only as a regional candidate but more so as a global player." The minister concluded his speech by inviting investors to invest in Bahrain, and let Bahrain be their regional gateway to the GCC region and take advantage of its central location within a $1.6 trillion market.