MANAMA, 2 February 2005 — Bahrain has led its Gulf neighbors by completing the first stage of the Smart Card project. “Progress have been made in completing the first stage of the project on the card design and the issuance of cards to the leadership and senior officials in the Kingdom,” Central Informatics Organization acting president Shaikh Ahmed bin Attiyatallah Al-Khalifa said.
“The second stage is to issue cards to about 30,000 citizens in June, followed by a nationwide rollout of the project,” he said. “The Smart Card is an outstanding achievement which will speed up efforts toward Gulf unification and the integration of Gulf citizenship,” he said.
Shaikh Ahmed opened yesterday the international “Smart Society” conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The “Smart Society-Act Now?” conference, organized by the Bahrain Information Technology Society, gathered over a hundred international delegates and speakers.
A demonstration and issuance on Bahrain’s Smart Card became a key attraction at the morning’s opening program which was joined by Minister of Social Affairs Dr. Fatima Balooshi and other government and CIO heads and BITS officials.
“We are particularly proud to be the co-organizer of this prestigious conference which comes timely with our effort to launch the Smart ID card here in Bahrain and to complement our effort to boost public awareness on the cards,” Shaikh Ahmed said.
“This will also help to prepare the business community in large to utilize the card to offer to new electronic services to their customers.”