Bucking the global trend Last year, global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by thirteen percent – to the lowest level since the global financial crisis. As UN Secretary-General Guterres notes in his preface to the latest World Investment Report (WIR) from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), this sharp drop in … Continued
Bucking the global trend Last year, global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by thirteen percent – to the lowest level since the global financial crisis. As UN Secretary-General Guterres notes in his preface to the latest World Investment Report (WIR) from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), this sharp drop in … Continued
The advent of Open Banking, mandated last year, and set to come into force in June this year, is the latest step in Bahrain’s leadership role in the FinTech sector.
Last week’s World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa raised the question of how can we guarantee that technology becomes more human-centered and accountable as we move towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Our Chief Executive HE Khalid Al Rumaihi explores this further.
Getting to a point where home-grown technology companies can scale to be a global force is not easy. But it’s essential that this is our goal in the Middle East. So how can we make it happen?
As we get deeper into 2019, the likely path of the FinTech industry through the rest of the year is beginning to emerge. The increasing rise of challenger banks, digital-only banks and non-traditional, algorithm-powered lenders is a given.
Electronic commerce, more than any other facet of the economy, holds the potential to transform the GCC in exciting ways over the next few years. Taking into consideration that mobile phone subscriptions have already outpaced population numbers throughout the region – by 2.1 times in Bahrain and the UAE, for instance – it is a … Continued
The World Economic Forum’s Manama Meeting in November on “the Arab World in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)” brought together regional leaders – business executives, government officials, venture capitalists and more – in Bahrain to explore economic forces that can both help and hinder GCC-based enterprises in realising the full potential of evolving markets. Not … Continued
Team Bahrain’s recent trip to China – touring commerce and innovation hubs including Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Shijiazhuang – only served to deepen my conviction that our partnership has only just begun to fulfil its enormous potential. As China continues to build the Digital Silk Road and support the development of technology leaders, Bahrain represents a natural partner that can nurture the ingenuity of these visionaries and serve as a gateway to a region of 50 million people with a combined spending power of $1.5 trillion.
Bahrain has long been known as a regional pioneer in building and sustaining a robust and future-ready economy. It was the first GCC country to diversify away from oil, granting the private sector a vital role in the Kingdom’s economic growth. These developments build on a firmly established business ecosystem in Bahrain. Bahrain is due to implement four new laws to build on its firmly established business ecosystem.
