BAHRAIN: Bahrain’s nonoil growth in Q3, 2015 reached 3.3 percent, according to the latest Bahrain Economic Quarterly (BEQ) issued by the Economic Development Board (EDB), with growth in the first three quarters as a whole reaching 4.2 percent in the nonoil sector.

Overall growth in the economy reached 2.4 percent in the third quarter and three percent over the first three quarters as a whole. Growth was driven by the continued resilience of the nonoil sector.

This performance was underpinned by robust performance across a number of sectors. In particular, the report revealed that the hotels and restaurants, and the social and personal services (primarily private education and private health care) sectors were among the key drivers of growth within the nonoil economy for Q3, 2015, with a year-on-year growth rate of around 8 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively. Transportation and communications also saw strong growth of six percent during the quarter.

The resilience of the nonoil sector, including the growing pipeline of infrastructure projects, helped to support job growth, with the total number of private sector jobs rising by an annual seven percent YoY in Q3. Consistent with the positive momentum in job creation, overall unemployment declined to its lowest level in several years. The official unemployment rate held steady at 3.1 percent in Q3.

The BEQ also highlighted expectations of further growth in key sectors such as infrastructure, with nearly $6 billion worth of projects allocated, $3.7 billion tendered and $1.3 billion commenced to date. This will have a positive impact on the construction sector in the upcoming years.

In the banking sector, bank credit continued to grow at a brisk pace with total bank credit increasing by seven percent as of the end of Q3.

Khalid Al-Rumaihi, chief executive of the EDB, commented on the findings of the BEQ report: “We are very encouraged by the resilience of the Bahraini nonoil sector in spite of the challenges it faces. On a regional level, the GCC economies remain in expansionary mode and the nonoil growth drivers across the region remain resilient. The resilience that the economy has demonstrated has helped to reassure investors, highlighting the progress that Bahrain and the wider region have made in diversification and the long-term economic strengths that have underpinned growth in recent years.”

In recent months, Bahrain has seen a number of developments in the financial services, ICT and manufacturing sectors. In November the Central Bank of Bahrain, in collaboration with the local Benefit Company, launched an electronic fund transfer system (EFTS) that connects all retail banks in the Kingdom with each other and with major billers in order to increase the efficiency of fund transfers.

In the ICT sector, the EDB in collaboration with C5 Accelerate Limited and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of the first cloud accelerator in the Middle East and Africa region, which will be located in the Kingdom.

Additionally, Synergies Castings Ltd. and Mumtalakat announced the establishment of an aluminum casting and specialty alloy wheel manufacturing facility in Bahrain. The $150 million facility will produce the equivalent of two million vehicle alloys a year, an annual capacity of approximately 25,000 tons.