Bahrain's vision until 2030: A new paradigm

Recently Bahrain grabbed media attention by an economic vision extending until 2030. The vision envisages the economy diversifying away from oil with special emphasis on financial services, industry, logistics, business services and tourism.

Together, these sectors can help the government address the key economic challenge of creating jobs for the local work force.

The document starts by arguing the need for coordinated reforms, in turn linked to disturbing economic realities. For instance, statistics confirm that foreign nationals take the majority of newly created jobs, which raises unemployment among locals. In 2007, the private sector created more than 27,000 jobs, but expatriates cornered 96 per cent of them.

The vision rests on three guiding principles - sustainability, competitiveness and fairness.

Sustainability of successful economic requires investing resources on human capital via education and training. As to competitiveness, officials need to try and improve the country's fortune in an increasingly competitive world. Bahrain lags behind fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries save Oman in terms of competitiveness.

The Global Competitiveness Report for 2008-2009 has ranked Bahrain No 37 in the world among 134 economies covered in the study.

Still, fairness calls for ensuring that public and private sector entities carry out their transactions in full transparency. Yet, fair distribution of wealth among citizens should be the priority.

The vision has aspirations for the economy, government and society. The document insists on making Bahrain nationals employees of choice in private sector establishments, but that they must be productive and creative, thus properly educated and trained. In fact, the vision expects private sector firms to be playing a dominant role in the economy.

Efficient use

The document argues for sourcing out inessential public services of the government to private firms in order to ensure efficient use of scarce resources. For their part, civil departments should focus on putting in place the right infrastructure.

In other words, the government would play a supportive role. As to society, the vision stresses on providing locals and residents access to quality healthcare.

However, several commentators have censured the authorities over the manner in which the document was presented.

The critics have argued that officials should have prepared a draft for public discussions involving legislators, the business community and civil society, as part of efforts to develop a final version.

Still, others found no logic in the exceptionally long time span of the vision, covering some 22 years. Critics charge that new variables or even change in technology could render the plan ineffective.

Yet, others attacked the vision for lacking statistics notably when compared to plans of competing economies.

By contrast, authorities in Dubai have adopted a strategic plan extending to a relatively short span of time and with specific numbers.

The Dubai Strategic Plan (DSP) covers the period from 2007 to 2015. Among others, DSP aims at increasing Dubai's GDP from $37 billion (Dh136 billion) in 2005 to $108 billion by 2015.

In addition, the plan calls for raising annual per capita income from $33,000 in 2005 to $44,000 in 2015. Certainly, economic growth statistics must be in constant terms in order to avoid the impact of inflationary pressures.

The writer is a Member of Parliament in Bahrain