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Located in the south-eastern quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman is the only member of the GCC situated outside of the Gulf. To leverage its strategic location, Oman has invested in infrastructure with the goal of becoming a global logistics centre. Given that the country is less hydrocarbons-rich than its GCC neighbours, diversification efforts are a driving force behind economic growth. The sultanate’s long-term development strategy, Oman Vision 2020, is coming to a close, and in January 2019 the Vision 2040 conference set the stage for a new plan. Vision 2040 will continue to emphasise diversification, privatisation and Omanisation, with the goal to increase tourism, modernise agriculture, and foster technology and research and development.

Recent years have seen the promulgation of various laws to position Bahrain as a competitive regional jurisdiction. This chapter reviews these new laws, including Bahrain’s new Law for the Encouragement and Protection of Competition, which came into effect on February 1, 2019. The first dedicated Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) came into force on August 1, 2019. Prior to the implementation of the PDPL, there was no single codified data protection law in force in Bahrain. The Protected Cells Company Law, designed to further develop Bahrain’s financial sector, facilitates local and foreign investment, and promotes the country as a simple, secure and cost-effective place to do business in the Middle East. This chapter contains a viewpoint from Hatim Q Zu’bi, Zu’bi & Partners, Attorneys & Legal Consultants.

With developed ICT infrastructure, high penetration rates, a tech-savvy population and a business-friendly ecosystem, Bahrain has much to offer investors. The kingdom’s geographically and demographically compact market provides an ideal sandbox for tech companies and start-ups to experiment and roll out pilot programmes, giving it a well-established research and development pedigree. Telecommunications companies in Bahrain face many of the same challenges as providers in other countries, with a decline in demand for voice services, accelerating data consumption and higher investment costs, particularly as infrastructure spending is disproportionately allocated to the rollout of the 5G network. Nevertheless, tech firms and start-ups will continue to benefit from the kingdom’s relative ease of doing business and government support in the form of funding, accelerators and incubators. This chapter contains an interview with Mikkel Vinter, CEO, Batelco.

With its first hospital dating back to the 1890s and a universal health care system in place since the 1960s, Bahrain has long had solid fundamentals for care provision. The coming years will be characterised by the continued rollout of Sehati national insurance system. Further infrastructure development will also remain a focus as the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Medical City takes shape. The kingdom is enhancing its research and development capabilities with initiatives from the Ministry of Health to establish the Bahrain Genome Project, a specialised centre for genetic analysis, and plans to open the $1bn King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Medical City in 2021.