Bahrain leads GCC in cost competitiveness

Bahrain has the most liberalised and competitive IT sector in the region, a new study finds. The report on ‘The Cost of Doing Business in the GCC’ in the ICT sector says that the Kingdom leads on most indicators for the cost of doing business in the GCC region – a market worth $1.5 trillion.

The report by KPMG further reveals that Bahrain has lower costs than any other GCC country for cross-border internet connectivity, a critical metric for an ICT hub. Overall, the total average cost of operating in Bahrain for ICT dependent enterprises was 16 per cent less than the GCC’s average, according to the report.

The report states that recent policy reforms enable start-ups to test, innovate and scale quickly, establishing Bahrain as a fast-growing, highly-connected business hub with accessibility at its core. Bahrain has updated its bankruptcy law; introduced data protection law; adopted a cloudfirst policy as well as reduced the minimum capital requirements for starting a business.

Commenting on the report, Dr Simon Galpin, Managing Director, Bahrain Economic Development Board said, “Our Cloud First commitment and the launch of the Middle East’s first hyper-scale data centre by AWS will further advance our ICT readiness, opening up new sectors, increasing productivity and enabling businesses of all sizes to scale faster at a lower cost.

This recent report from KPMG is a testament to our innovative and progressive approach.” Bahrain’s “Cloud Computing scheme” provides 100pc financing support of the cost for any Bahrain-registered business subscribing to a hyperscale data centre for 18 months.