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Karnataka-Bangalore
Bahrain for closer ties with India
By Our Special Correspondent
BANGALORE, JAN. 8. A high-level delegation of Bahrain's Economic Development Board has called for forging closer business ties with India and invited entrepreneurs to invest in that country which was tax-free.
The Economic Development Board (EDB) also opened its India office in Bangalore today.
The Bangalore office is the third outside Bahrain, the other two being in Hong Kong and Tokyo.
The only island-nation in the Arab world, Bahrain enjoys a strategic location in the region.
The country also offers cent per cent ownership of property and business to investors and is all set to lay down a blueprint for e-transactions and e-commerce laws.
The Economic Development Board's Chief Executive Officer, Jamal Ali al-Hazeem, who is leading the team, told presspersons that his country had identified six key economic clusters that had great potential for growth. The EDB's aim was to promote foreign investment in IT and telecommunication, healthcare, education and training, tourism, banking and financial services, and downstream industries.
He spoke of the establishment of the Birla Institute of Technology (BITS) in Bahrain recently which offered degrees in computer engineering and computer science.
Mr. al-Hazeem said Bahrain was one of the most technologically advanced countries in the region. Its telecommunication provider, Batelco, had led the build-up of an extensive network which was one of the world's first fully digitised networks.
The telecommunication sector would soon be opened up to improve Internet and other telecommunication services for investors and technology companies, he said.
Mr. al-Hazeem said the opening up of the sector would provide a significant opportunity to Indian and other foreign investors.
On the political front, significant changes were going on in the country which would be transformed into a constitutional monarchy by 2004. This had also given a push to foreign investments. Mr. al-Hazeem hoped that Indian investors would make the best use of the opportunity.
There have been a series of reforms in the political and economic spheres after Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa succeeded his father, Shaikh Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa as Emir of Bahrain.
The Heritage Foundation has once again ranked Bahrain as the freest economy in the Arab world. It was ranked 15th on the foundation's 155-country Index of Economic Freedom, a spot it shares with Canada.
Mr. al-Hazeem is accompanied by Abdullah al-Hasan, Head of the IT and Telecom Programme, and Mazen M.Matar, Head of the Industrial Programme. The India office of the Bahrain's Economic Development Board here is headed by Ganesh Raja.
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