Bahrain sees 4.5pc GDP growth next year 

Washington (Reuters):  Bahrain’s finance minister estimated the kingdom, a Gulf financial hub hit by civil strife this year, will see gross domestic product grow by 1.6 to 1.7 percent this year, increasing to 4.5 percent in 2012.

“This year the first quarter was negative but we are looking to close this calendar year with about1.6-1.7 percent (GDP) growth,” the minister, Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, told Reuters in an interview.

Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet, was rocked in February and March by its worst public unrest since the 1990s.

Sheikh Ahmed spoke after a Bahraini government-commissioned panel charged with investigating human rights abuses found that Bahrain’s security forces used excessive force to suppress protests this year.sBahrain’s economy grew by 1 percent quarter-on-quarter in April-June after shrinking 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the previous quarter. Analysts polled by Reuters in September forecast Bahrain’s economy, the smallest in the Gulf, would grow by 2.0 percent this year, below the 4.5 percent expansion seen in 2010. They expect growth to pick up to 3.2 percent in 2012. Sheikh Ahmed, however, said his current estimate was for GDP growth to rise to 4.5 percent for 2012.