Finance Minister stresses Arab economic challenges

Manama : Addressing the opening session of the annual joint meeting of the Arab financial institutions yesterday, Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa stressed Bahrain’s pride in hosting the event for the first time.

The meeting was opened yesterday under the auspices of Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. Shaikh Ahmed thanked HRH the Premier for patronising the key pan-Arab meeting. 

The Minister stressed the crucial importance of the pan-Arab session, which brings together high-profile decision-makers, senior officials and financial and investment experts. 

He stressed Arab countries’ economic reform strides, highlighting particularly the drive of oil-exporting countries. Faced with plummeting prices in international oil markets, they embarked on structural financial reforms to diversify economic strategies and boost non-oil revenues.

The Minister also underscored the current challenges faced by the Arab countries due to the global economic downturn and declining trade exchanges, which affect economic stability on Arab countries. He highlighted Bahrain’s strenuous efforts to revitalise the national economy, achieve satisfactory positive rates of growth and reduce unemployment over the past years. 

Shaikh Ahmed said that Bahrain anticipated the current trends and embarked long ago on a policy to diversify the national economy and boost the non-oil revenues. In this regard, he stressed mega projects, which covered the sectors of aluminium, petrochemicals, seaports, logistic services and telecommunications, in addition to financial and banking services.