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Amin A. Al Arrayed, General Manager of First Bahrain, tries to quantify the consequences of the events that shook Bahrain. He argues, “I can鈥檛 give you a percentage decline or anything like that. I don鈥檛 have that kind of statistics. I can tell you that if you look at the GDP growth pre-crisis, we were talking close to 5% growth. Today it鈥檚 very stable, so we are talking about maybe 2 or 3% growth which is very slow compared to where we were. The economy has slowed, that鈥檚 for sure. The real question is in terms of consequences, how many businesses have decided that it鈥檚 no longer worth continuing their operations and that鈥檚 a more permanent damage that happens, if companies start to say we鈥檝e been here but I think it鈥檚 time for us to leave.”

Al Arrayed continues, “For me, that鈥檚 more concerning. Thankfully I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 happened en masse. You鈥檝e had companies that have made that decision but they were probably more based on the economics than on the political side of things. You鈥檝e got areas where growth is much stronger like Dubai and Qatar that for a lot of companies that only want to have one base in the Gulf, maybe would consider those areas. That鈥檚 unfortunate that Bahrain has maybe lost that competitive advantage to these other countries.”