Commentary by Hasan Alhasan – 1 November 2011
Bahrain's Crown Prince. Source: bloomberg.com
The decades long adage of “no representation without taxation” that seemed to underpin the way governments have interacted with their citizens in the Gulf region soon may no longer be valid in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain. In August, the government announced it was studying the highly unpopular option of introducing a corporate tax on companies, a valued-added tax on products and a cut in public subsidizations of consumer goods to cover the growing budget deficit. The country’s Crown Prince Shaikh Salman Al-Khalifa – a modernizing figure within the country’s ruling family – is intent on decreasing Bahrain’s economic dependence on oil and thus on Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that in 2010 oil revenues coming in from the shared Saudi oil field of Abu Safah as subsidy represented up to 67% of Bahrain’s budget revenue. Continue reading
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