July 05, 2015
His Royal Highness Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and Chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB), on June 7, chaired the EDB’s Board of Directors board meeting, at Riffa Palace. During the meeting His Royal Highness advised the board to stay up to date with the investment strategies regionally and globally in order to take advantage of sources and resources the Kingdom has to offer, mainly to achieve economic growth which will in turn promote economic development, and the well-being and prosperity of the citizens.
His Royal Highness outlined, that the next phase of the work of the Economic Development Board requires redirecting its efforts related to investment promotion and economic planning in close cooperation with the Government which comes as part of clear, long-term strategic priorities with its implementation leading to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainability.
The meeting commenced with ratification and review of minutes of the prior Board meeting, after which, Mr. Khalid Al Rumaihi, CE of the Economic Development Board (EDB), gave a comprehensive presentation over the proposed investment plan of the EDB which included strategic priorities, that will form the guidelines for the Kingdom’s investment promotional plan. The plan will attract investment globally, regionally and from target markets in the coming years. Mr. Al Rumaihi also explained that over the past three months, the EDB had worked on creating a high level plan to determine the investment attraction focus markets, which includes economically vital and competitive sectors.
Furthermore, discussion ensued with regards to the newly proposed organisational structure of the EDB in lieu of the investment promotion plan, whereby talks centered over methodologies to increase the productivity of the EDB as well as the steps required to allow implementation of the investment promotion plan in accordance with the highest possible standards. The CE further explained that the new organisational structure will ensure that the EDB is more capable of economic planning and the promotion of the Kingdom in the target markets, stressing that it will be working with its public and private sector partners to achieve measurable results that will contribute to the sustainability of economic development and diversification, as well as creating employment for Bahrainis. Mr. Al Rumaihi closed the meeting welcoming board of members’ proposals, as well as noted that the new EDB structure will be panned out in the second half of 2015.
