Bahrain’s economic growth accelerated strongly in the first quarter of 2013, helped by a revival of oil output, official data showed. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded 2.5 percent quarter-on-quarter in January-March, compared to a downwardly revised 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
On an annual basis, growth quickened to 4.2 percent in the first three months of 2013, the highest rate in a year, from a downwardly revised 2.5 percent in the previous quarter, the data from the Central Informatics Organization showed.
The country of 1.3 million people has based its economic strategy on becoming a regional financial hub as it lacks much of the petrodollar wealth of its Arab neighbors.
But political unrest, in which the government has faced mainly Shiite-led pro-democracy protests, has hit the economy hard and raised pressure on the government to boost spending.
The Daily Star
1 July
