Recent years have seen direct investment growing in Bahrain’s manufacturing sector. According to the Economic Development Board (EDB) – the kingdom’s export promotion agency – investment in manufacturing rose by 18% in the five years to 2018, and by 4.3% during the first half of 2018. Figures for full year 2018 show that the manufacturing,...
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) drive global economic growth and employment, accounting for an average of 33% of GDP and 45% of the workforce in high-income countries, and over 60% of GDP and 70% of employment in developing economies. The rise of SMEs has been crucial to economic diversification and resilience, particularly in...
Outside of financial services, Bahrain’s manufacturing sector has grown to become the largest contributor to non-oil GDP. The sector has benefitted from rising foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, one of the world’s leading global aluminium industries and increasing diversification into value-added production across several segments, most...
Urbanisation is a mega-trend redefining contemporary life in both developed and emerging markets across the world. This mass rural-to-urban movement of people and expansion of cities to absorb formerly isolated villages is a relatively recent phenomenon, at least in the developing world. According to the UN, in 1950, 751m people lived in urban...
Real estate in Bahrain has remained resilient in the face of successive macroeconomic challenges, maintaining a positive – albeit subdued – growth trajectory in recent years even as rental and occupancy rates declined across the residential, commercial, and hospitality segments. While developers have struggled with persistent oversupply and...
From 206 BCE to 220 CE, China’s Han dynasty fostered a booming trade industry for silk, a precious commodity in high demand among the elites of the Mediterranean. The Silk Road was the name given to the network of trade routes connecting the East and West at the time. Later, spices and other precious cargo would be traded using the system,...
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