Investment Opportunities in Bahrain

1.  Financial services:
Central Bank of Bahrain(CBB) is the regulatory authority for all financial institutions in Bahrain.  CBB ensure the application of rules and regulations by all institutions that fall under its authority, and it also pressures these institutions to comply by policies and laws.

Core Financial Services
- Islamic Financing, and Islamic banking services.
- Insurance and re-insurance
- Solidarity services
- Command assets programs
- Assets management programs

2. Industrial and specialized services
· Easy access to the region
· Financial sector’s high demand for  professional services.
· The low operational costs
· The availability of skilled manpower
· The preferred legal environment

Professional services and industrial firms include:
AT Kearny, CB Richard Ellis, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and the international advertising agency JWT, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, Norton Rose, Agility Logistics, and Roland Berger.

3. Logistics Services
Bahrain is consideredas an ideal platform in the Middle East in the field of providing logistics services for companies.  A number of well-known companies have chosen Bahrain as a hub for its services.

Logistic Privileges:
- Accessibility to the economies of neighboring countries.
- The availability of a variety of advanced transport networks (land, sea, and air transport networks), with minimum travel time between sea ports, airports, and logistics zones of the Gulf region.
- Superior free business environment in the region.

Logistics companies in Bahrain include:
Agility, Agunsa, APM Terminals, Aramex, DHL, Expeditors, FedEx, GAC, Kuehne+Nagel, Panalpina, TNT, UPS and others.

4. Education and Training
Bahrain is a regional leader in education, hosting conferences that attract leading educational academics from around the world.
We have a thriving education sector, including an expanding public education and training sector, and private schools offering curricula from around the world
The Quality Assurance Authority for Education and Training safeguards standards
 A significant portion of the budget assigned to Tamkeen, the national labour fund, is available for private sector education and training

5. Manufacturing
At the heart of the GCC’s trillion dollar market, Bahrain is the ideal base for meeting the Gulf’s growing appetite for manufactured goods.
Bahrain offers manufacturing companies the following benefits:
- Central location reduces freight costs
- Excellent road, sea and air links – one hour’s drive from 50% of Saudi Arabia’s economy (with the Kingdom’s Riyadh business hub only four hours away), home to Bahrain’s national carrier, Gulf Air, which has the largest regional network and connects to over 50 destinations worldwide, and home to one of the Gulf’s largest trans-shipment hubs
- Membership of the GCC common market guarantees duty-free trade
- Bilateral trade and economic agreements with over 60 countries, including  China, France, India, and Singapore, as well as a Free Trade Agreement with the United States and a Double Taxation Agreement with the UK.
- Plentiful supply of specialist, skilled and semi-skilled workers
- Supportive labour fund.
- Competitive costs for labour, industrial land and energy .

6. Information, Communication & Technology
Bahrain’s position as the Middle East’s most liberal information, communications and technology (ICT) market, along with excellent infrastructure, has encouraged many ICT companies to base their regional headquarters here.

ICT companies already in Bahrain include:
Batelco, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Huawei, Kalaam Telecom, Lightspeed, Menatelecom, Microsoft, 2Connect, Viva (Saudi Telecom), Software AG, Tech Mahindra, TATA Consultancy Services, WIPRO and Zain.

7. Ownership
100% foreign ownership of business is allowed. Sector-specific and/or company type restrictions may apply.

8. Taxation
Bahrain has the most attractive tax environment in the Gulf, with the same low- or no-tax regime across the entire jurisdiction – not just in designated free-zones. There are no personal income taxes*, no corporation taxes, no wealth taxes or tax on capital gains, no inheritance tax, no restriction on repatriation of capital, profits or dividends and few indirect taxes.

Bahrain was ranked the 12th in regards of economic freedom according to the economic freedom world indicator 2013 published by Wall Street Journal.

9. Workforce
Our workforce is the most educated and skilled in the Gulf. This means you can minimize spending on expatriate packages and build a long-term, sustainable local workforce.  For example, Bahrainis comprise two thirds (66%) of the financial services workforce, according to the Central Bank of Bahrain (2010).
 
10. Low Cost
Our low costs are another important advantage. Basic costs such as rents for offices and industrial land are lower than elsewhere in the region. The combination of subsidies and privatization in the utilities sectors, mean that electricity, gas and water costs are highly competitive. And with low living costs, wages are also highly competitive.

Investing Opportunities in Bahrain
* Logistics
* Education & Training
* Manufacturing
* Information Communications & Technology
* Financials
* Real Estate
* Healthcare
* Construction
* Consultancy
* Engineering
* Chemicals & Plastics
* Packaging
* Financial Services
* Professional & Industrial Services
* Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

(source: website of Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry)