HRH the Crown Prince to visit India this week
HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and EDB’s President leads a high-level Bahraini delegation this week in an official visit to India aimed at boosting bilateral political and trade relations between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the friendly Republic of India.
The delegation is expected to visit both Mumbai and New Delhi and conduct high-level talks with Indian officials and leaders of the private sector.The EDB’s Acting CEO and Minister of Transportation Kamal bin Ahmed commented on the anticipated visit: “Bahrain and India are linked by solid bilateral business cooperation relations as we here in Bahrain are now host to more than 120 Indian firms. The Indian expatriate community in Bahrain constitutes the major part of resident foreign community .
Bahrain provides an excellent setting for Indian companies seeking to expand operations worldwide or to access the GCC markets which experience fast growth of up to USD 1 trillion in addition to low cost business operations, high-skilled Bahraini manpower available for these companies.”The expected visit of HRH the Crown Prince to India aims at boosting existing solid, stable bilateral cooperation relations between the two friendly countries.
The EDB, as part of its promotional campaign of the Kingdom, has organized a series of meetings with Indian VIPS and business leaders.The high-level talks focus on a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the GCC countries and India.The delegation accompanying HRH the Crown Prince comprises representatives from the EDB, the BCCI, Mumtalakat Holdings Company (the largest investment arm for the Kingdom’s strategic non-oil assets.On the other hand, BCCI chairman Dr. Essam Abdullah Fakhroo said: “the Indian economy is considered the second speediest growing economy in the world which makes the Indian market attractive to us in order to assert our commitment to achieve diversification of the economy in Bahrain.
Our visit to India aims at interaction with Indian oil firms and portrayal of the Kingdom’s feature as a strategic business friendly hub in order to access GCC markets, which according to economic forecasts, shall double their value to USD 2 billion by 2020.It is worth mentioning that in 2011 the volume of trade exchanges between Bahrain and India reached approximately USD 1.7 billion according to IMF report. Also in the years 2005 and 2010, India’s share in Bahraini foreign trade reached 4.1%. Bahrain was a home away from home for about 200,000 Indian expatriates, according LMRA statistics in 2011, which is one-third the total of manpower officially-registered in the Kingdom.A large number of Indian corporations have their own regional head or branch offices registered in Bahrain for instance: TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Tech Mahindra, JBF, Canara Bank, ICICI Bank, Bank of Boroda and India’s National Bank (i.e. the State Bank of India).
