A good transport system is a key enabler in any economy, but in the case of Bahrain, an island country, this holds particularly true. Although the nation has relatively small reserves of oil and gas, it has historically been a trading centre, and in the 1970s and 1980s it emerged as the main entrepôt for the Gulf region. As an open economy with a...
Although the unrest of 2011 has had a knock-on effect in many sectors of the economy, one area which has held up relatively well has been the hotel segment. During the rapid economic growth in Bahrain in the 2000s, a great deal of money found its way into real estate, and within that sector, the hotel industry offered promising returns.
There are only three possible entry points to Bahrain: by airport, by the King Fahd Causeway (which links the island to Saudi Arabia) and by port. With the bulk of Bahrain’s imports and a large proportion of its exports entering and leaving by sea, the strength of maritime transport is thus something of a barometer for the overall economic health of...
With a long history as a pioneer in the Gulf region, Bahrain was the first country to discover oil in the 1930s. It was also the first to face the issue of declining reserves, replacing reliance on hydrocarbons by developing one of the first heavy industries in the region, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), in the mid-1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s the...
Following the boom years of 2003-08 and the subsequent downturn in the midst of the global financial crisis, the Bahraini construction sector is once again beginning to show signs of growth. The sector was first hit by the 2008 financial crisis, which was compounded later by social unrest in Bahrain. Similar to the experience of nearly every other...
As part of its economic diversification strategy, Vision 2030, Bahrain is planning to develop an internal public transport network and to build rail connections to both Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Bahrain’s Ministry of Transport is in the process of finalising the country’s railway master plan, which was due to be completed by the end of 2012, but no...
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