Manama : Fatima bint Jaffar Al Sairafi, the Minister of Tourism, participated in the ‘Investment in Tourism: Opportunities and Challenges of Sustainable Finance’ conference, on the sidelines of the regional meeting of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, held in Muscat.
The conference aims to discuss the opportunities and challenges related to financing the tourism sector in a sustainable manner, raise awareness on the importance of directing financing towards tourism projects that contribute to economic and social growth, explore new innovations and solutions in the field of tourism financing and enhance cooperation between the public and private sectors to achieve sustainable development goals in the tourism sector.
The Minister affirmed that Bahrain provides opportunities to investors in the tourism sector, and initiatives aimed at developing the tourism product to raise the volume of tourism investment and increase the sector’s contribution to the growth of the economies of the Middle East as a whole.
She highlighted the investment environment that characterises Bahrain and the systems and legislation that implement it, which is continuously developing to suit local and global economic conditions and requirements to encourage tourism projects.
Minister Al Sirafi said that Bahrain is witnessing a significant growth in the number of tourism licenses for various projects and services, including the golden license granted to two tourism projects out of 9. This license provides incentives and simplified services to foreign and local companies that have large-scale investment projects in the kingdom.
The minister said that such initiative and facilitation stimulate investments and enhance job creation within the framework of the kingdom’s financial and economic reforms.
She participated in the first session of the conference, which was held under the title: “Stimulating investment through partnerships between sectors… A dialogue session: Effective partnerships in financing the tourism sector,” during which she emphasised the need to strengthen partnerships between the public and private sectors and financial institutions to stimulate investment in projects and provide a suitable and stable financial environment for investors in the sector.
During the session, she highlighted Bahrain’s leading position in tourism investment thanks to the efforts of the government and private sectors, adding that these close national partnerships highlight the direct interest in the sector and its ability to attract capital and harness it to serve and develop tourism and attract local and international partners, in line with the Tourism Strategy 2022-2026.
