Connecting the Arab world

Manama : The scope of creating a transportation network, which would cover the entire Arab world, was the main topic of discussion at the 17th Arab Engineering Conference inaugurated yesterday under the patronage of Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Cabinet Affairs Minister Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al- Mutawa attended the event on behalf of HRH Premier.

The conference, held under the theme “Transportation in the Arab world and the Prospects for its Development and Integration between Arab Countries”, is in its twenty-seventh edition.

It was organised by Bahrain Society of Engineers in collaboration with Federation of Arab Engineers at The Diplomat Radisson Blu Hotel, Residence and Spa in the presence of about 350 participants from various Arab countries.

Engineers and experts from all over the Middle East participated in the conference and they discussed the possibility of implementing a unified Arab transport network in the Middle East and North Africa Region. 

The Cabinet Affairs Minister called for pumping more budgets and launching investments to develop the infrastructure of the Arab transportation sector to link Arab countries and facilitate the flow of trade among them.

He affirmed that the transportation sector is an investment field that is capable of pushing economic growth forward and generate thousands of job opportunities.

In his speech, Conference Chairman Dheya A. Aziz Tawfiqi, pointed out that working on such a project will have its challenges, but once it is implemented, the benefits would be huge. “The Arab world still needs to develop the transport network, which will allow the Arab countries to collaborate together. This will of course need a huge budget. Many of the advanced countries have implemented complex transport network so we have studied and benefited from their experience,” he pointed out.  

“The geography of Arab world stretches between two continents, covering a very large area, with varying nature, including deserts, seas, rivers and mountains. Such variety may make the implementation of transport projects a difficult and challenging task for engineers to plan and design them. However, provision of different types of transport that make them easily accessible for all, is a strategic target. The basics of communication between the Arab countries could be achieved through availability of transport network that combines all the available means of transport,” he said. 

Bahrain Society of Engineers President Masoud Al Hermi lauded advancement of Bahrain’s infrastructure.

“In Bahrain, development in infrastructure projects has been tremendous. Advancement in this field has helped the Kingdom in competing with the rest of the world in various fields. According to the latest international index from the annual report of the World Economic Forum 2015-2016, Bahrain was ranked 39th at the global level,” he said. 

Ex-Prime Minister of Egypt Dr. Essam Sharaf and Secretary of General of the Federation of Arab Engineers Dr. Adel Ebrahim Al Hadithi also gave a speech during the opening ceremony. A technical exhibition was held in connection with the conference, which was inaugurated jointly by Al Mutawa and Dr. Essam Sharaf.