Page 372 - Records of Bahrain (7) (i)_Neat

358 Records of Bahrain

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CONFIDENTIAL

helped by some Improvement In Saudi Arabia's financial
position. The free transit area in Manama port was Inaugurated
on January 1, 1950 and has developed quite well, though
unspectacular 1y. In May the vice-chairman, Mr. W. H.
McFadzean, of the Advisory Council for Middle East Trade
visited Bahrain and interviewed leading merchants. In June
the chairman, Mr. J. Vaughan Morgan, Minister of State at
the Board of Trade, also visited Bahrain. In October a New
Zealand Government trade mission visited Bahrain as did an
unofficial delegation of business men from Kenya, and an
Australian Government trade representative. A definite
tendency has developed during the year for local merchants
to press for Bahrain Government purchasing to be done in Bahrain,
through the local agents of overseas, e.g. British, suppliers.
This movement has been helped by the Bahrain Petroleum
Company's declared policy of buying all it can through local
merchants. The contractors, Gammon Pakistan Limited, for
the new deep water jetty at Jufair have been under some
criticism for the apparent slowness with which the construction
of the jetty is advancing. Gammon are newcomers to harbour
work and their agent here has succeeded in putting many
people's backs up as well as being secretive about his hopes
and intentions for the task in hand. There was also much
fuss during the hot weather because of power cuts over the
commissioning of the first Brown-Boveri (Swiss) gas turbine in
the main power station. Here the contractors - Brown Boverl -
and the British consultants - Goode and Partners - appear
chiefly to blame though the British head of the Bahrein electricity
department did not escape criticism for not having handled the
whole thing better.

10. The coup_dIetat in Iraq in July had surprisingly little
effect in Bahrain. The Ruler agreed without difficulty to a
request by Her Maajesty's Government to increase temporarily
the number of British troops in the islands though at the same
time saying he trusted the reinforcements would not be used for
Muscat and Oman. Even this influx of troops - and in particular
vehicles - caused no perceptible reactions in Bahrain (and was
indeed welcomed privately by local business interests as
bringing trade and money in). By the end of the year the
numbers of British troops had been reduced to the usual two
companies.
11. The Bahrain Petroleum Company started a new well in November
at Burl north west of the existing field. By the end of the
year the hole had gone down to over five thousand feet with no
trace of oil. Production from the Bahrain field has been raised
i to 45,000 barrels a day and as a result the state's revenues are
beneflttlng. In July, at the time of the Iraq-Jordan-Lebanon
crisis, the United States Government proposed to fly packed oil
from Bahrain to Jordan. The plan fell through because Saudi
Arabia would not let the United States Government send its
aeroplanes over Saudi territory. Had the plan not fallen through
there might have been political difficulties with the company's
local labour which opposed the idea. The company has been
/pressed ...

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