Manama: A one-stop border crossing post to eliminate traffic congestion at the Bahrain-Saudi borders on King Fahad Causeway will be implemented within four months, a Saudi official has said.
Under the concept, drivers will go through only one post embracing the routine border procedures that include passport control, car clearance and customs.
Currently, drivers have to go through the Bahraini and the Saudi formalities, which often results in heavy congestion and long queues of cars at the borders on the 25-kilometres causeway.
Drivers coming from Saudi Arabia into Bahrain will go through a Saudi post without the need for any formalities from the Bahraini authorities while those driving out of Bahrain will have their travel documents processed in Bahrain without the need to go through Saudi formalities, the official said, local daily Al Eqtisadiya reported on Thursday.
However, the official who was not named said that the new one-stop border crossing concept will be applied only to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) citizens.
The GCC, set up in 1981, comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Holders of non-GCC passports will have to go through the two stop border crossing procedures, he said.
The concept calls for dedicating some of the existing lanes at the frontiers to GCC citizens to facilitate the paper work.
The official, who was not named by the Saudi daily, said that the new concept would be initially applied for one week before it is fully implemented.
“There will also be several precautionary measures to deal with emergencies, such as technical failures at the Bahraini or Saudi posts,” he said. “The agreement to ease the border crossing procedures was reached by the various committees from the interior ministries of the two countries,” he added.
King Fahad Causeway, Bahrain’s only terrestrial link, was officially inaugurated on November 26, 1986. It has become one of the busiest traffic sectors in the Arab world, necessitating drastic changes to ensure the smooth flow of traffic.
Officials said that millions of people, vehicles and trucks have used it since it was opened and that around 100,000 people crossed it on the third day of Eid last month.
