The Labour Fund “Tamkeen” held its annual Consultation Forum, featuring the participation of more than 350 representatives of the various stakeholders within the economic ecosystem in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This included the different enterprises as well as governing bodies that oversee the economic landscape and provide various services to support private sector growth, with the aim of identifying key developments and challenges and discuss possible development opportunities.
Tamkeen’s Chairman, Shaikh Mohammed bin Isa Al Khalifa, stressed during his opening speech at the Forum the importance of the impact on the economic development of the Kingdom of Bahrain as a participatory process involving all stakeholders within the economic ecosystem. As such, Tamkeen’s Consultation Forum is a key step in the journey of further improving the startup ecosystems and supporting the growth of the national economy and boosting productivity.
Shaikh Mohammed expressed his appreciation for the noteworthy achievements of the past year. He stated that Tamkeen’s 2018-2020 strategy, which was formulated on the basis of intensive coordination and outreach efforts with a wide segment of stakeholders from the various sectors, has made significant headway in achieving its vision, specifically with regards to further enhancing the impact of its support programs, as well as accelerating the pace of action as per sustainable development requirements.
In his address, Shaikh Mohammed further noted that Tamkeen is fully committed to ensuring adding value and enhancing support opportunities that serve as wide a segment of individuals and enterprises as possible, remarking that its Q3 2018 financial statement shows an increase of around BD 10 million in Tamkeen’s support to the development of individuals and enterprises’ performance. In addition, Tamkeen strives to boost sustainable growth in individuals and enterprises through the provision of programmes that help boost employee performance on the one hand and reduce costs and increase outputs on the other.
Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the forum, Tamkeen’s Chief Executive Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Janahi said that the Kingdom of Bahrain is on the cusp of a new era of economic measures that will contribute to supporting sustainable growth in the national economy, among the implementation of VAT at the beginning of 2019. Dr. Janahi went on to explain that the support opportunities Tamkeen is working on developing will complement all the other efforts aimed at optimal utilization of these valuable resources for both enterprises and national economic growth.
He further added that Tamkeen has recently upgraded customer service procedures within the Enterprise Support Programme to better meet the needs of enterprises and provide advanced digital solutions to streamline the support delivery process.
On a related note, Dr. Janahi stated that Tamkeen’s role in bolstering the Kingdom of Bahrain’s leading position as a model ecosystem that supports the business sector in a sustainable manner forms the impetus behind its support and participation of the various national and international forums related to these efforts, hailing the Kingdom of Bahrain’s successful bid to host the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Congress from a pool of bids submitted by other countries with more experience in this field as yet another positive and significant achievement that augments the Kingdom’s national efforts.
Dr. Janahi also talked about Tamkeen’s support to the Export Bahrain initiative launched by the Small Business Development Council under the patronage of the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Mr. Zayed Al-Zayani, commenting that Tamkeen’s contribution extends to facilitating export solutions through the initiative, including solutions related to financing, credit, and training for exports.
The Tamkeen Consultation Forum also held panel discussions with participants that focused on several key themes that concern the various economic sectors, including ‘Start-Up Ecosystem’, ‘Productivity as a Key Measure of Success’, and ‘Matching Skills set with the Labour Market’s Needs’.