Introduction

The Government of Bahrain, over the years, has maintained a business friendly industrial environment to encourage industrial investors and entrepreneurs to set up viable industrial projects in Bahrain. The thrust of the Kingdom's industrial policy is on creating an enabling environment with maximum support and minimum intervention with the private sector playing a key role as a driver of economy. Our industrial policy aims at diversification of the base of national economy and lays emphasis on promotion of new start ups across all economic sectors using environmentally sound technologies as well as on improvement of productivity and development of human resources in the existing enterprises.

Bahrain has been ranked highly by several international organisations and has a reputation for offering attractive industrial opportunities to local and international investors. This coupled with an efficient banking and communication system, absence of taxation & exchange controls and a friendly society makes Bahrain an ideal place to invest in and do business.

The Kingdom has a strong presence in industrial sectors like Aluminum and Petrochemicals and a good network of light industries with all raw materials being available within easy reach. Bahrain has well developed industrial areas and the Bahrain International Investment Park at Hidd compares with the best industrial parks in the Region. The recent free trade agreement with the USA has also thrown up tremendous opportunities to access the burgeoning North American market. The investors from USA will similarly find excellent opportunities to do business in GCC and Arab Countries by creating a manufacturing base in Bahrain.

The Ministry of Industry & Commerce has been bringing out compendiums of industrial project opportunities from time to time to highlight attractive project profiles for the benefit of investors and entrepreneurs. This latest effort contains industrial project profiles in different sectors. These will be presented by experts at the 'Invest in Bahrain' Forum organised by the Ministry of Industry & Commerce on 14th December, 2006 at Bahrain Exhibition and Convention Centre.

The Ministry of Industry & Commerce will provide all possible assistance to investors to expedite the formalities needed to realise these opportunities into industrial projects in the shortest possible time. I hope that entrepreneurs and investors will benefit from the opportunities presented in this compendium.

Dr. Hassan A Fakhro
Minister of Industry & Commerce