Bahrain has long been a regional centre for fund management and its commitment to longer term growth based on our tried and tested fundamentals of transparency, education, low costs and trustworthy regulation remains undiminished.

The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, Bahrain’s business fundamentals, the transparency with which we do business, the high quality regulation through our single regulator - the Central Bank of Bahrain - and the low cost of doing business, remain unchanged. Secondly, the oil and gas rich nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are responding to the situation by coming closer together and focusing on increasing their cooperation, meaning that Bahrain is, more than ever, the best place for firms to access the wealth of the trillion dollar GCC economy, which is expected to double by 2020.

These strategic factors help to explain why no sizeable financial institution has left Bahrain and why Bahrain remains very much the centre for regional fund management.

That is not surprising, because major institutions take decisions on a long term basis and not on today’s transient headlines. On any realistic longer term view, the prospects for the Gulf remain very strong – and so do Bahrain’s prospects within the Gulf.

Global demand for energy will continue to grow and the GCC countries’ policy of investing in education, infrastructure and diversification has about it a strong sense of the future. Bahrain is already very well placed to benefit from increased cross-border business within the GCC, as its export figures demonstrate. On a longer term view, the possibility of further cooperative reforms within the GCC is very exciting indeed for an outward looking economy like Bahrain.

Within the overall Mena region, the Gulf is fortunately placed. For Bahrain, the $10bn GCC development fund greatly aids what would already have been an expansionary budget, deployed to strengthen the economy for the long term.

Bahrain is starting a new chapter of reform, continuing the process of development initiated by His Majesty ten years ago, which remains a fundamental commitment. Economic reforms, including economic diversification are being accelerated, with a greater emphasis on delivery and transparency.

Thus we have set up a fund services working group to update Bahrain’s long tradition of financial reforms. The group are looking at streamlining the registration and authorization process; enhancing fund structures and possibly introducing protected cell companies, as those operate well in Bermuda and Guernsey; introducing independent directors of funds and using a GP/LP structure for private equity funds. Outside of the working group, we are facilitating interactions to strengthen ties between fund managers in Bahrain and the relevant government institutions.

The strengths that made Bahrain a regional financial hub for the Gulf, the quality regulation, transparency and low cost of doing business, have not changed and, with a commitment to further reform and closer integration of the GCC, Bahrain remains the place to be for fund managers who want to access the trillion dollar Gulf market.