Foreign direct investments in Bahrain rose by 9.7 per cent in 2022 to $1.951 billion despite a global drop by 12.1pc in foreign investments, said Finance and National Economy Minister Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.However, he stressed that the effect of the pandemic as well as geopolitical and international inflation will continue to have a long-term effect as global economic growth will drop from 3pc last year to 2.9pc this year with it standing at 3.5pc in 2022.“We have worked out 27 programmes through our Economic Recovery Plan announced in October 2021 and we are continuing to work on them despite international challenges and changes that Bahrain is not insulated from.”Shaikh Salman was responding to a question by Parliament second deputy speaker Ahmed Qarata on ways to tackle inflation, during Parliament’s weekly session yesterday.In another response to a question by Strategic Thinking Bloc president Ahmed Al Salloom, the minister said of the 27 projects earmarked under the Economic Recovery Plan, 22 have been completed.Mr. Al Salloom also renewed calls proposed to introduce a living improvement allowance for private sector employees, like the allowance that government employees receive.“In general, the Economic Recovery Plan is seeing great success, but more than two-and-a-half years after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic we need to review strategies and programmes and launch new plans that are in line with global economic changes.”The MP pointed out that some of the strategies under the Economic Recovery Plan, such as tourism, do not have performance indicators.“This strategy is very important, and it has clear and specific goals such as increasing the average tourist nights, increasing the average visitor spending per night and increasing the number of visitors coming to the kingdom,” he said. (ICE Doha)

Fonte notizia: Gulf Daily News