DUBAI: Bahrain’s economic growth picked up again in the third quarter of 2012 after shrinking in April-June and its statistics office expects the small oil producer to recover further from the impact of social unrest, state news agency BNA said.
Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter in July-September, BNA quoted Mohammed Al-Amer, Central Informatics Organization’s head, as saying.
That compares to a 1.3 percent drop in the second quarter, which was the first quarterly decline since a 6.6 percent slump in the first three months of 2011.
On an annual basis, Bahrain’s real GDP — despite ongoing political turmoil weighing on the regional financial hub — expanded 3.1 percent in the third quarter, a slowdown from a 4.3 percent growth in the previous three months.
Al-Amer said that the annual GDP rise was mainly due to non-oil economic activities, which grew 5.9 percent in constant prices in the third quarter, although construction and real estate still expanded at lower single digit rates.
Output in the hydrocarbon sector, which accounts for almost a third of Bahrain’s $ 29 billion economy, fell 7.1 percent year-on-year due to a roughly 10 percent decline in crude production from the Abu Safa field, he said.
Analysts polled by Reuters in September forecast Bahrain’s real GDP growth to accelerate to 2.8 percent in 2012 from 1.9 percent in 2011.
Bahrain economy recovers in third quarter
