Bahrain

Economy | Tourist Industry

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Bahrain (ุงู„ุจุญุฑูŠู†โ€Ž,), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a country in the Persian Gulf. The island nation comprises a small archipelago made up of 70 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centred around Bahrain Island which makes up around 83 percent of the country's land-mass. The country is situated between the Qatari peninsula and the north eastern coast of Saudi Arabia to which it is connected by the 25-kilometre long King Fahd Causeway. The capital and largest city is Manama.

Bahrain is the site of the ancient Dilmun civilization. It has been famed since antiquity for its pearl fisheries, which were considered the best in the world into the 19th century. Bahrain was one of the earliest areas to be influenced by Islam, during the lifetime of Muhammad in 628 CE. Following a period of Arab rule, Bahrain was ruled by the Portuguese Empire from 1521 until 1602, when they were expelled by Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty. In 1783, the Bani Utbah clan captured Bahrain from Nasr Al-Madhkur and it has since been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family, with Ahmed al Fateh as Bahrain's first hakim.

In the late 1800s, following successive treaties with the British, Bahrain became a protectorate of the United Kingdom. In 1971, it declared independence. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared an Islamic constitutional monarchy in 2002. In 2011, the country experienced protests inspired by the regional Arab Spring. Bahrain's ruling Sunni Muslim Al Khalifa royal family has been criticised for violating the human rights of groups including dissidents, political opposition figures, and its majority Shia Muslim population.

Bahrain developed the first post-oil economy in the Persian Gulf, the result of decades of investing in the banking and tourism sectors; many of the world's largest financial institutions have a presence in the country's capital. It consequently ranks 42nd in the Human Development Index and is recognised by the World Bank as a high-income economy. Bahrain is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

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Economy According to a January 2006 report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Bahrain has the fastest-growing economy in the Arab world. Bahrain also has the freest economy in the Middle East and is twelfth-freest overall in the world based on the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal.

In 2008, Bahrain was named the world's fastest-growing financial centre by the City of London's Global Financial Centres Index. Bahrain's banking and financial services sector, particularly Islamic banking, have benefited from the regional boom driven by demand for oil. Petroleum production and processing is Bahrain's most exported product, accounting for 60% of export receipts, 70% of government revenues, and 11% of GDP. Aluminium production is the second-most exported product, followed by finance and construction materials.

Economic conditions have fluctuated with the changing price of oil since 1985, for example during and following the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990โ€“91. With its highly developed communication and transport facilities, Bahrain is home to a number of multinational firms and construction proceeds on several major industrial projects. A large share of exports consist of petroleum products made from imported crude oil, which accounted for 51% of the country's imports in 2007. Bahrain depends heavily on food imports to feed its growing population; it relies heavily on meat imports from Australia and also imports 75% of its total fruit consumption needs. Since only 2.9% of the country's land is arable, agriculture contributes to 0.5% of Bahrain's GDP. In 2004, Bahrain signed the Bahrainโ€“US Free Trade Agreement, which will reduce certain trade barriers between the two nations. In 2011, due to the combination of the global financial crisis and the recent unrest, the gdp growth rate decreased to 1.3%, which was the lowest growth rate since 1994. Access to biocapacity in Bahrain is much lower than world average. In 2016, Bahrain had 0.52 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Bahrain used 8.6 global hectares of biocapacity per person โ€“ their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use 16.5 times as much biocapacity as Bahrain contains. As a result, Bahrain is running a biocapacity deficit.

Unemployment, especially among the young, and the depletion of both oil and underground water resources are major long-term economic problems. In 2008, the jobless figure was at 4%, with women over represented at 85% of the total. In 2007 Bahrain became the first Arab country to institute unemployment benefits as part of a series of labour reforms instigated under Minister of Labour, Dr. Majeed Al Alawi.

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Tourist Industry As a tourist destination, Bahrain received over eight million visitors in 2008. Most of these are from the surrounding Arab states although an increasing number hail from outside the region due to growing awareness of the kingdom's heritage and its higher profile as a result of the Bahrain International F1 Circuit.

The kingdom combines modern Arab culture and the archaeological legacy of five thousand years of civilisation. The island is home to forts including Qalat Al Bahrain which has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The Bahrain National Museum has artefacts from the country's history dating back to the island's first human inhabitants some 9000 years ago and the Beit Al Quran (Arabic: ุจูŠุช ุงู„ู‚ุฑุขู†, meaning: the House of Qur'an) is a museum that holds Islamic artefacts of the Qur'an. Some of the popular historical tourist attractions in the kingdom are the Al Khamis Mosque, which is one of the oldest mosques in the region, the Arad fort in Muharraq, Barbar temple, which is an ancient temple from the Dilmunite period of Bahrain, as well as the A'ali Burial Mounds and the Saar temple. The Tree of Life, a 400-year-old tree that grows in the Sakhir desert with no nearby water, is also a popular tourist attraction.

Bird watching (primarily in the Hawar Islands), scuba diving, and horse riding are popular tourist activities in Bahrain. Many tourists from nearby Saudi Arabia and across the region visit Manama primarily for the shopping malls in the capital Manama, such as the Bahrain City Centre and Seef Mall in the Seef district of Manama. The Manama Souq and Gold Souq in the old district of Manama are also popular with tourists.

In January 2019 the state-run Bahrain News Agency announced the summer 2019 opening of an underwater theme park covering about 100,000 square meters with a sunken Boeing 747 as the site's centrepiece. The project is a partnership between the Supreme Council for Environment, Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA), and private investors. Bahrain hopes scuba divers from around the world will visit the underwater park, which will also include artificial coral reefs, a copy of a Bahraini pearl merchant's house, and sculptures. The park is intended to become the world's largest eco-friendly underwater theme park.

Since 2005, Bahrain hosts an annual festival in March, titled Spring of Culture, which features internationally renowned musicians and artists performing in concerts. Manama was named the Arab Capital of Culture for 2012 and Capital of Arab Tourism for 2013 by the Arab League and Asian Tourism for 2014 with the Gulf Capital of Tourism for 2016 by The Gulf Cooperation Council. The 2012 festival featured concerts starring Andrea Bocelli, Julio Iglesias and other musicians.

As per the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bahrain's economy contracted by 5.4% in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic severely affected the tourism and energy sector. According to a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Bahrain's tourism sector is amongst the hardest hit by COVID-19 pandemic. As compared to 2019, the industry witnessed losses between $1.7 trillion and $2.4 trillion in 2021.

The country's public debt in 2020 is $44.5 billion, or 130% of GDP. It is expected to rise to 155 per cent of GDP in 2026, according to IMF estimates. The military expenditure is the main reason for this increase in debt.

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Bahrain Time 
Bahrain Time
Image: Adobe Stock evannovostro #74757437

Bahrain is the #71 city in the world according to the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) which evaluates and ranks the competitiveness of the major financial centres of the world according to a wide range of criteria โ€“ Human Capital, Business, Finance, Infrastructure and Reputation.

The Bahrain state has a population of over 1,736,578 people. For the location of Bahrain see: Manama.

To set up a UBI Lab for Bahrain see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Manama has links with:

๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท Ankara, Turkey ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฐ Karachi, Pakistan
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license | GFCI

Antipodal to Bahrain is: -129.424,-26.23

Locations Near: Bahrain 50.576,26.2296

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Al Manama 50.578,26.233 d: 0.4  

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Manama 50.572,26.234 d: 0.6  

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Muharraq 50.619,26.262 d: 5.6  

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Sitra 50.65,26.12 d: 14.2  

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Madinat Hamad 50.5,26.1 d: 16.3  

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ญ Hamad Town 50.5,26.1 d: 16.3  

๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Khobar 50.208,26.285 d: 37.2  

๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Dhahran 50.15,26.267 d: 42.7  

๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Dammam 50.1,26.433 d: 52.6  

๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Al Qatif 49.996,26.556 d: 68.2  

Antipodal to: Bahrain -129.424,-26.23

๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ซ Papeete -149.566,-17.537 d: 17727.1  

๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ธ Pago Pago -170.701,-14.279 d: 15530.6  

๐Ÿ‡ผ๐Ÿ‡ธ Apia -171.76,-13.833 d: 15406  

๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ด Nuku'alofa -175.216,-21.136 d: 15341.2  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Manzanillo -104.3,19.05 d: 14296  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Lรกzaro Cรกrdenas -102.183,17.95 d: 14288.5  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Zihuatanejo de Azueta -101.55,17.633 d: 14282.9  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Colima -103.717,19.233 d: 14248.2  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Acapulco -99.904,16.86 d: 14258.7  

๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Ciudad de Villa de Alvarez -103.749,19.256 d: 14247.6  

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