The Middle East

As of December 2015, the Bahrain Bourse was home to 46 listed companies distributed across several segments including: commercial banks, investment, services, insurance, industrial, hotels and tourism, closed companies and non-Bahraini companies. While falling oil prices and unrest in the wider Middle East region have continued to pose growth challenges to the Bahrain Bourse, a process of...

Thanks to a prudent yet flexible regulatory system, Bahrain’s lenders have been able to extend from a relatively small domestic base to become significant regional and global players. The wide range of external markets served by Bahrain’s banking sector makes for natural risk diversification, which has helped the industry maintain strong performance against global economic challenges. The...

Increasing revenues and reducing spending have been established as the core objectives of Bahrain’s economic policy, with subsidy reduction across the board likely to be a common theme in 2016. After energy, the financial sector continues to be the second-largest contributor to GDP, accounting for 16.5% of the total in 2014. This is followed by manufacturing which comprised 14.4% of GDP....

The kingdom of Bahrain has been ruled as a constitutional monarchy since 2002 under the leadership of Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The country pioneered the Middle East’s oil production in 1932, thus establishing the region’s initial framework for the petroleum industry. The energy sector remains a pillar of the kingdom’s economy, accounting for the bulk of government revenues but a...