Sunday, October 30, 2011

Bahrain registers 4.2% growth

V L Srinivasan
Manama (Bahrain), April 8:

Bahrain’s economy registered growth of 4.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2010, according to the latest data released by the Central Informatics Organisation (CIO).
Growth stood at 4.4 per cent in the third quarter of last year.
The report was expected to be ready by March 31 but was delayed by a week as additional information was required from various departments and companies.
The Kingdom’s GDP reached 8.627 billion dinars ($22.9 billion) in 2010 and the hydrocarbon sector grew 0.2 per cent in real terms in 2010, while the financial sector added 5.2 per cent.
“Preliminary data indicate that economic growth may continue at constant prices in the Kingdom during the fourth quarter of 2010 reaching 4.2 per cent,” the report said.
The results of most economic activities are relatively good compared to 2009 and also continuing improvement in oil prices provided the government greater discretion to spend the plans and follow less stringent fiscal policies, which helped to continue to grow at a stronger pace and return confidence to private sector activity.
Preliminary figures also show for the fourth quarter of 2010 a significant increase of the economic growth rate at current prices by about 19.4 per cent compared with the previous year due to the increase in oil and aluminum prices in the international markets for its previous levels compared with the last quarter of 2009.
In his comments to DT, CIO President Mohamed Ahmed said: “Despite financial crisis, the growth has been within our expectations.”
The Kingdom's economy grew 1.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2010, accelerating from a revised 0.9 per cent increase in the third quarter.
The construction and real estate sectors though have yet to return to pre-crisis levels. The financial sector, which accounts for nearly 21 per cent of the economy, is only slowly picking after the earlier financial crisis and regional property crash.

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