Bahrain has achieved impressive results on the first edition of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Future of Growth Report 2024, performing exceptionally well across several indices, placing higher than the global average scores for talent availability (above 66) and for digital and technology talent (above 67) under the talent ecosystem category.
The report aims to provide an overview of growth trends and re-evaluate traditional global economic growth metrics, introducing a new multidimensional framework to assess the quality of economic growth across 107 countries around the world, grounded across four pillars to qualify traditional measures of growth: innovativeness, inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience.
The Future of Growth Report 2024, which highlights seven distinct growth models to offer potential policy inspiration and enable the development of more holistic areas of improvement to capture common synergies through data analysis, ranked Bahrain 2nd in the Gulf in the GDP growth rate per capita. Moreover, on the resilience pillar, Bahrain exhibited a robust performance on human capital indicators owing to a young population (90.1), the ability to fill vacancies with a global workforce (75.6) and investment in reskilling talent (70.2) – all well above global average scores. Bahrain also scored above average in infrastructure quality, financial system resilience, technology supply concentration, and government adaptation on an institutional level.
The strategically located island nation also earned above global average scores under the financial ecosystem for digital payments and long-term, venture, and SME finance availability. As for the technology ecosystem category, Bahrain placed just above the global average in business culture and competition, outshining its global counterparts in exports of advanced services, landing the maximum possible score of 100. For the ‘inclusiveness’ pillar, Bahrain ranked above average in the inclusion in workforce category, and well above average in terms of access to financial services.
Nada AlSaeed, Chief of Strategy at Bahrain Economic Development Board, stated, “Bahrain’s exceptional performance, particularly across pivotal categories of innovativeness and resilience, cements the island nation’s reputation as a destination for talent and progressive government frameworks, reflected in the above average scores across the metrics of regulatory quality, human capital, and institutional policy vision.”
“With its business-friendly environment that embraces the continual adoption of forward-thinking policies and agile regulation, and ongoing investment in its human capital, Bahrain continues to reach new heights on an international playing field, positioning the island nation as a frontrunner to global investors seeking to establish a new footprint in the region,” the Chief of Strategy added. The optimistic rankings on the Future of Growth Report 2024 come on the heels of Bahrain Delegation’s successful participation at the 2024 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, which convened mid-January under the theme of Rebuilding Trust, bringing together global leaders and experts to exchange innovative ideas and develop strategies for economic progress.
