Month: April 2018

Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air has announced that its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner will serve its double daily London Heathrow service.

The new aircraft, which conducted a fly pass before the Bahrain Grand Prix race on Sunday, will join the fleet on June 15, the airline said in a statement.

A total of five Dreamliner aircraft will enter Gulf Air’s fleet by the end of 2018 with an additional two aircraft arriving during 2019 and three arriving by the end of 2020.

Gulf Air CEO Krešimir Kucko said: “We are only weeks away from officially taking delivery of Gulf Air’s first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – a historic moment for Gulf Air and Bahrain and yet another important step in our strategic direction towards furthering Gulf Air’s fleet modernization process and supporting our network and overall passenger experience enhancement strategies.

“Only a few weeks ago, we unveiled a new Gulf Air corporate strategy, 2018 network expansion plans to 8 new routes, details surrounding our incoming fleet, new, best in class products and services, our new overall direction and where we hope the future will take us all. It is time for change and we are embracing change today.”

This summer, Gulf Air will also expand its network with flights to Bangalore, Alexandria, Casablanca, Baku, Abha and Tabuk in Saudi Arabia, Calicut, and Sharm El Shaikh.

Gulf Air’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners will offer 282 seats in a two-class configuration, with 26 Falcon Gold Class seats and 256 Economy Class seats.

Marty Bentrott, vice president, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Sales for Middle East, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and Africa, said: “The number of airlines operating this super-efficient airplane is increasing across the world and we look forward to the Dreamliner joining Gulf Air’s fleet.”

Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/transport/393801-bahrains-gulf-air-says-first-dreamliner-to-launch-on-london-route

Bahrain hopes that the tourism and hospitality sector will contribute “double digits” to its GDP over the next several years, according to Ali Ghunam Murtaza, the director of real estate, tourism and leisure business development at the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB).

According to official figures, tourism contributed 6.3 percent to Bahrain’s GDP in 2017.

Speaking to Arabian Business at the Arabian Travel Market, Murtaza said that the figure is likely to grow as ongoing tourism projects are completed.

“We foresee the contribution to go up for many reasons. Part of that is that we are actively working towards it. We want the contribution of tourism to increase along with other sectors in Bahrain,” he said. ” It’s an active strategy.”

“Through direct and indirect investment to tourism, I think it will be a big part of GDP,” he added. “Our aim is to get into double digits soon.”

In the longer term, Murtaza said he hopes that tourism’s contribution to GDP will reach as high as 20 percent, as much as other sectors such as banking.

“We aim to get it there in the long run,” he noted, adding that the county also hopes to attract 15 million tourists a year by 2020, up from approximately 12.7 million in 2017.

Additionally, Murtaza noted that investment in Bahrain’s tourism sector has reached $13 billion, a figure which encompasses 14 separate projects in the country’s tourism and leisure sector.

The tourism projects, in turn, form part of a larger infrastructure development campaign across a number of sectors, which is collectively valued at more than $32 billion.

“We have fantastic five-star resorts coming in, such as the Address, the Vida, the Jumeirah [Royal Saray], and so forth,” he said. “In addition to that, we’ve also started adding to our retail offerings, such as The Avenues, and we have a couple of others.”

To encourage more visitors to come to Bahrain, Murtaza noted that Gulf Air has invested nearly $7.2 billion to expand its fleet and “modernise the Gulf Air brand”, as well as $1.1 billion investments into expanding and improving Bahrain’s national airport, a project which Murtaza said is approximately 60 percent complete.

Looking to the future, Murtaza said that partnering with foreign investors is a key pillar of Bahrain’s strategy to increase visitor numbers and revenue from tourism.

“We work with them [companies based outside of Bahrain] very closely to identify opportunities where they can bring synergy to the table, where they bring quality investment, quality operations,” he said. “There are a lot of firms around the world with a lot of specific experiences.”

“We work to identify the top ones, and we work to get them to like Bahrain, get them to understand the opportunities, and then we enable the investment,” he added. “We are partners for the long-run.”

Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/travel-hospitality/394790-tourism-to-contribute-double-digits-to-bahrains-gdp-in-coming-years

Doha: Qatar International Court and Dispute Resolution Centre (QICDRC) CEO Faisal Rashid Al Sahouti said that 120 companies have registered with Qatar Financial Center (QFC) since the siege was imposed on Qatar, an increase of 200 percent in investment volume compared to the same time last year.

In an interview with Al Raya Newspaper, Al Sahouti said the increase in investments despite the unjust siege reflects the investors’ trust in the Qatari economy and the failure of the siege countries’ plans to harm the economy.

He added that QICDRC was a main factor in marketing QFC globally thanks to the role it played in resolving different civil and trade disputes. Since its establishment, he added, it has engaged in a number of major cases using senior judges with proven experience and international competence.

Al Sahouti said that describing QICDRC as international is not only a result of the diversity of its judges but also because the followed system is the same as in most courts in the world’s largest cities that attract capital. Al Sahouti explained that it has 16 judges from 10 different countries, all of whom have long standing experience in the judicial work in their countries adding that the QICDRC is headed by the former Lord Chief Justice of the United Kingdom. He revealed that there are two levels of litigation before the court, after which the judgments become final and enforceable, and may not be appealed to any other party.

He added that the number of cases heard by the court has increased by 15 to 20 percent annually, noting that there was a significant increase of 70 percent between 2016 and 2017 in comparison to the previous years. This is due to the investors’ trust in the court and the increase of investment in Qatar, he added.

Al Sahouti said that Qatar International Court has contributed to doubling the number of registered companies with QFC between 2010 and 2015 as the increase took place since establishing the court created confidence for the investors.

With regards to the future development plans of the court, he said that its development must proceed in a gradual and stable manner, adding that a new law will be issued for QFC and is currently in its final stages.

The QICDRC CEO explained that the law will expand the court’s jurisdiction making it supervisor not only of QFC but is likely to oversee companies operating elsewhere in the country to enhance the confidence of foreign investors to work in Qatar.

He added that the new law will allow the court to expand the scope of the arbitration process, where it will be activated through the establishment of an independent center under the umbrella of the court and will operate independently. In addition, the largest international arbitration centers will be attracted to open branches in QFC and Dispute Resolution Centre, following the transfer of the court next year to the financial district of Msheireb, he said.

Al Sahouti said the financial district will hold a building exclusively for the court and the international arbitration centers which have showed interest in opening branches here in Qatar, which will make Qatar an international hub for settling trade disputes, where major companies will head to for regional or national or international disputes. Qatar International Court will be supervising the arbitration, he added.

In addition, he announced the signing of bilateral agreements in the near future with a number of the most important business capitals in the world of finance and business at the international level. Such agreements would serve as bridges of justice between the most important capitals of the world, contributing to the transmission and implementation of judgments, he added.

As for cooperation between Qatar International Court and Foundation of Qatar Sports Arbitration (FQSA), Al Sahouti said the foundation opened a branch in the Dispute Resolution Centre of the court, in aim to resolve sports disputes. He added that this comes in the future plans of moving to the new building of the court in Msheirab, including headquarters for courts, dispute settlement centers, arbitration institutes and arbitration centers, so that the building is an international point for settling disputed and a place for cases since its start to the implementation stages.

On opening a branch of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) in Qatar, he revealed that the institute is the first in the world in the field of training and qualification of arbitrators. The institute has 80 branches worldwide with Qatar’s branch being the first in the Middle East and North Africa and will organize training courses and prepare awareness lectures for arbitrators or persons who want to work as arbitrators.

Source:https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/18/04/2018/120-companies-register-with-Qatar-Financial-Center-since-siege-began-Official