Bahrain keen to expand ‘digital economy’ by accelerating innovation in key technologies

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain has embraced the digital economy as a key driver for growth and development, and made innovation in key technologies a top national priority.

To support this objective, the Kingdom has set up a national strategy to make it stronger and better.

As part of that strategy to expand the vast digital economy, it has doubled down on funding for strategically important industries, sped up the building of new infrastructure, stepped up education and training capabilities, and used the internet to transform and develop the traditional economy.

The Supreme Committee for Information and Communication Technology’s 19th meeting, held virtually, was chaired yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa and attended by members.

The committee reviewed the progress of the work on the national strategy for the digital economy in light of the decisions of the Executive Committee to approve the required budget and the formation of the follow-up working group headed by the Ministry of Finance and National Economy.

ministry submitted a report on the identification of the strategic objectives of setting a medium-term plan to make Bahrain a leading destination regionally in the digital economy through building capacities, developing infrastructure, legislation, education and training.

strategic objectives include encouraging innovation to achieve progress in modern technology and its uses in supporting economic growth in financial, health and industrial services, transportation, logistics, oil and gas, and training.

The committee approved the work plan and the proposal to appoint an international consultant to prepare the strategy.

It also approved the proposed training programme for strategic planning for information technology in the public sector, prepared by the Information and e-Government Authority (iGA).

The training programme aims to build the capabilities of information technology officials in public sector institutions to enable them to develop and implement information technology strategies according to the needs of their institutions and in line with the government strategy and the national programme for digital transformation.

The programme includes training participants to follow methodologies and use tools to design and develop strategies to increase their aptitudes to keep pace with change and achieve qualitative addition to government information technology projects.

It consists of about 100 training hours and a programme to prepare trainers in the same field.

The committee also approved the digital transformation plan for the services of the ministries and authorities of Bahrain in light of its follow-up to its decision regarding government agencies speeding up in preparing their plans for e-transformation.

committee reviewed the status of e-transformation of government services and the services that have been completed, including 578 out of 1,581 government services while 66 different government e-services were completed in 202 and financial transactions grew by 80% to reach about 2.7 million financial transactions totaling about BD353 million until last September.

They were the result of providing alternative channels for payment and of launching electronic invoices.

HH Shaikh Mohammed directed the iGA to complete the study of the remaining government services within the e-transformation programme.

The authority should also propose the implementation of future plans for them according to their importance and priority within a specific timetable in coordination with the Services