His Royal Highness Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and Chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB), today chaired the EDB’s Board of Directors meeting, at Riffa Palace.

His Royal Highness highlighted the need to continue to revise and update the Kingdom’s investment strategy to respond to the evolving global economic landscape.

His Royal Highness went on to emphasise that the strategy must take advantage of Bahrain’s strong regional market position and unique resources to boost cross-sector economic growth, create high-value jobs and deliver long-term sustainable development for the Kingdom.

In addition, His Royal Highness underscored the importance of aligning the EDB’s investment promotion strategy and wider economic planning efforts to the parliament-approved Government Action Plan and Government Priorities Framework.

Members at the meeting then reviewed and ratified the minutes from discussions at the previous Board meeting. Following this, Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of the EDB, gave a presentation on the EDB’s proposed investment promotion strategy for Bahrain. During the presentation, Al Rumaihi detailed the EDB’s priority areas to promote the Kingdom abroad and to attract foreign direct investment (FDI).

Rumaihi went on to highlight that the high-level plan reflected an exercise undertaken by the EDB over the past three months to identify initiatives to accelerate the investment impact achieved by the organisation. This included identifying key priority markets and economic sectors where Bahrain has competitive strengths, and a plan to attract, capture and retain investment moving forward.

Rumaihi also outlined the EDB’s new proposed organisational structure, which was designed to support the effective delivery of the investment promotion strategy and support talent development.

Al Rumaihi highlighted that the newly proposed investment promotion strategy and organisational transformation will ensure the EDB achieves its mandate to deliver economic planning and investment promotion for Bahrain. He went on to emphasise that the EDB will continue to work in close partnership with the government and private sector to achieve measurable results in supporting sustainable economic development and diversification, and job creation for all Bahrainis.

Al Rumaihi then noted that following the Board’s approval, the strategy would be finalised and initiated in the second half of 2015.