Bahrain has established investment projects worth $1.9 billion in various sectors during the first quarter of 2018, with oil, gas, infrastructure and health sectors topping these projects.
Oil and gas sectors accounted for 32 percent of the total value of these projects at $623 million.
The momentum of investment in this sector was mainly due to the construction and expansion project of the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) refinery through which Bahrain plans to raise its production capacity in oil refining from 260 thousand barrels per day (bpd) to about 360 thousand bpd.
The increase in production capacity comes in line with the expansion of the oil pipeline linking Saudi Arabia to the Kingdom of Bahrain, which will increase its capacity to 350,000 bpd.
Second came the infrastructure sector with 31.9 percent of the total value of the established projects, which amounted to $615 million. The third place was taken by the health sector with 22 percent and a total value of about $440 million.
Aviation sector, for its part, accounted for about seven percent of the projects implemented during the first quarter of 2018, with aviation contracts amounting to $136 million.
Bahrain’s government also continues to invest in the housing sector by accelerating steps to reduce the waiting period of the Bahraini citizen between submitting the application and receiving the property.
The percentage of government investments in this sector is about 1.5 percent, at more than $28 million.
This was followed by the information sector with a rate of 1.2 percent, with contracts worth about $24 million, then the youth and sports sector by 1.1 percent and the volume of investment contracts of about $21 million.
Accordingly, 190 projects were implemented in the infrastructure sector, 79 projects in the oil and gas sector, 53 projects in the aviation sector and 38 projects in the health sector.
These were followed by the education and youth sector with 24 projects, 12 projects were implemented in the investment sector and five projects in the housing sector.
The size of these investments reflects the extent of government interest in enhancing the Kingdom's infrastructure, which holds the largest share of the value of the projects.
These investments are mainly related to the infrastructure projects the government is working on in cooperation with the private sector.
