Bahrain: notes from a small island « ArabianMoney

This week ArabianMoney has been reporting live from Bahrain, once the undisputed Gulf regional financial centre, a crown it largely lost to Dubai during the boom years. But Bahrain has not stood still.

The soaring new World Trade Centre and 51-storey twin towers of the Bahrain Financial Harbour are testament to that. Then again if you look at the three half-built towers within the BFH it is clear that Bahrain has also suffered from the same economic sudden stop that hit Dubai 20 months ago.

The official story is that Bahrain is surviving the crisis better than its rival. Yet the financial centre has been rocked by the financial crisis enveloping two Saudi groups and one of the founders of the BFH has just sold its stake, presumably to raise cash.