No resistance to reform
Friday, August 29, 2008
Change is constant and must be tackled with right ambition, right energy to achieve success: CP
The following is the text of the interview Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa gave to John Defterios from CNN:
You always meet resistance to reform and there seems to be some hardliners within the government, that seem concerned that Shiites will be empowered economically as you go through this reform process. How do you counter resistance to the reforms that you’re trying to push through.
No resistance to reform
Friday, August 29, 2008
Change is constant and must be tackled with right ambition, right energy to achieve success: CP
The following is the text of the interview Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa gave to John Defterios from CNN:
You always meet resistance to reform and there seems to be some hardliners within the government, that seem concerned that Shiites will be empowered economically as you go through this reform process. How do you counter resistance to the reforms that you’re trying to push through.
Well, first I think it’s important that we don’t characterise it as resistance within government. The system itself needs to be developed to respond to the new international challenges. Also the private sector needs to be more adaptable to the increased competition and globalisation. Change is a constant, change is here, change is never easy but I think it must be tackled with the right ambition. It must be tackled with the right energy as well to achieve success.
We’ve seen gains obviously in Iraq for the Shiite community. Does that affect you here on the ground to respond to the majority population?
In Bahrain I think its very important to remember that we are a multi-cultural, a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational society. So respect must be extended to all people whether they would be Sunni, Shia, Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. Making sure that poverty or relative poverty, this is a very important term, is addressed in the Kingdom and distribution of wealth is managed in a more actable manner is something that I am very focused on. And the only way to really achieve that is to increase productivity and make people feel a sense of betterment in their lives when they work. And that their children will have more potential and more opportunity than they did.
I found it fascinating, last December we had three days of protest, quite heated protests after the National Day. What does it say about the fabric of Bahrain today, that a) you had the protest but b) what was the complaint behind it?
One misconception is that we are against this in some matter, or that we are unable to accommodate it in our political fabric and that is absolutely untrue. Bahrain is and will continue to be the freest and most liberal political environment in the region .
So this is tolerance in a word – that’s what you’re saying….
This is tolerance and sometimes when you are tolerant, people will exceed the norms of acceptable behaviour and violence can spill out.
You’re home to the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy, the largest in the world. It’s not easy to balance relations with say Iran, the United States and Europe. We’ve seen Iran getting quite bellicose with its comments, for example the head of the army saying that in fact they can block the Straits of Hormuz, which is a very important shipping line and artery. What do you make of that? How do you interpret what Iran is saying on that front?
Only Iran knows what Iran intends with those kinds of comments. But, what we certainly call for is an increased dialogue, understanding and tolerance. I hope that cooler heads will prevail and that peace and dialogue are the victors.
Are you worried of being caught flat-footed in the financial services because Dubai is coming on aggressively, Qatar is coming on aggressively, even Saudi Arabia. There’s quite an intense competition. You don’t need that many financial services centres.
We’ve been ranked as the fastest growing financial capital in the region, if not actually in the Middle East. We have seen growth upwards of 20 per cent in that sector per annum. We have over 2,000 funds that have based themselves here. Growth in that sector alone is over 30 per cent. We, I believe lead the region in Islamic finance. So when I speak about financial services and banking I am talking about niche products, I think in those products we are still leaders and that’s good for us.
You’ve been very loyal to the US dollar within the Gulf’s currencies and you keep speaking up about it. Isn’t it wiser though even to faze in a link to a basket of currencies that includes the Euro and the Yen and not be overexposed to what is now a weaker currency?
Being linked and pegged to the dollar, of which I am a strong proponent, removes any uncertainty in our revenue collection. So that allows robustness in our government finances. Secondly, it facilitates regional trade because five of the six member states are pegged to the dollar. And thirdly, it is something that we have taken a long view to, since 1980, so you don’t quit when the going gets tough and benefit with the good times.
http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2008/08/28/mme.a.crown.prince.bahrain.pt1.cnn?iref=videosearch
