Finance Minister honoured

Manama, Jan. 29 (BNA): The Financial Times’ magazine The Banker has conferred on Minister of Finance and National Economy Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa the Best Minister of Finance in the Middle East Award 2020. The honour is in recognition of the minister’s contribution to boosting the financial and economic situation in Bahrain by following up on the implementation of Fiscal Balance Programme which was launched in October 2018 and aims to balance between the government’s expenditure and revenues by 2022. The Kingdom of Bahrain has adopted many policies aimed at decreasing expenditure and increasing revenues while maintaining implementation of development programmes to reach forecast goals and back up the national economy. The initiatives led to a drop in deficiency by 37.8% in the first semester of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. This shows perpetual growth of the national economy in parallel with the Fiscal Balance Programme through continuous efforts to lure investments, provide more quality opportunities and achieve the sustainable development goals. It is to note that the award is granted annually by the Banker magazine to the Ministers of Finance in the Middle East. The magazine is considered one of the most important financial publications in the world. The award is conferred according to various high-level criteria.