Figures released by Bahrain’s e-Government and Information Authority reaffirmed that trade with Saudi Arabia grew in Q1 2021, amounted to $789 million and accounted for almost half of all the kingdom’s trade with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states.
Flow of trade between Manama and Riyadh depends largely on the King Fahd Causeway, where the adoption of new technology in the field of logistics services accelerated processing for the business of multinational companies based in Bahrain.
“Bahrain is moving forward with strengthening its cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” Executive Director of Bahrain’s Economic Development Board (EDB) Ali Al Mudaifa told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Mudaifa reaffirmed that bilateral trade relations with Saudi Arabia continue to grow stronger and that there are a number of factors which contributed to the increase in the volume of trade, including the low business costs and strong interdependence.
“It is great to see the endeavors of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in finding innovative solutions to maintain the continuity of business flow between the two countries,” he said, noting that it now takes a mere 40-minute drive to get from one kingdom to another.
Moreover, trade between Bahrain and the rest of the GCC members rose 6% year-on-year to $1.76 billion during the first quarter of 2021, according to the latest official figures.
Trade between the UAE and Bahrain in the first three months of this year saw a 15% boost and amounted to $639 million.
Trade between Oman and Bahrain increased by 27% to $230 million in the same period. Oman was followed by Kuwait, which recorded $98 million in bilateral trade in Q1 2021.
In other news, Bahrain’s Electricity and Water Minister Wael bin Nasser Al Mubarak and Electricity and Water Authority (EWA)’s CEO Shaikh Nawaf bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa inaugurated the first electric cars charging station in the Atrium Mall in Saar, west of the capital, Manama.
It is worth noting that this comes within the framework of achieving Bahrain Economic Vision 2030.
EWA’s CEO said that the electric car charger was installed by “Siemens” one of the specialized companies in this field, and it supports most types of electric cars.
He explained that this station will be the first among a number of additional stations that will be opened in the future in various regions of the Kingdom. A study of data usage and feedback will be conducted so that the development process will be continuous in the new stations.
