Page 321 - Records of Bahrain (7) (ii)_Neat

Economic and financial affairs 711
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would doclino in about ten years but last at leant twenty,
while gas reserves were sufficient to meet present require­
ments probably beyond tlio ‘'presently known oil producing life"•

Nor do the prospect at present seem good of Bahrain' g ever
reaping much from the oca-bed ceded to Saudi Arabia or from
her other off-shore areas.
3. The exercise which we have carried out has not therefore
produced the survey intended; but our efforts have not been
entirely wasted, They have confirmed and revealed tho
complete lack of economic/financial Information and expertise
in the Bahrain Government, and the requirement for a statistical

department and an economic adviser if the Bahrain Government
I
is ever to take effective meaoure6 to protect Bahrain'o
l
prosperity.
•4. That some measures hre essential is now becoming apparent
to even the smuggest of ;ho Bahra.n merchants, who have been
worried by a summer that ha3 been even more quiet commercially
than usual and by the fa lure of trade to pick up with the
beginning of the cooler voathcr. Economic despatches from this
post have stressed the threat to the island*o traditional
trading position of the emergence of merchant communities
in neighbouring states where the discovory of oil has brought

wealth, or the prospect of wealth, far exceeding that enjoyed
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by Bahrain. The merchant community of Bahrain has at la6t
appreciated the danger Y/hich the desire of merchants in other
Gulf states to deal directly with foreign suppliers presento
to it6 livelihood and to its profits; but it has not yet
raioed its eyes from its ledgers to look at v/hat a doclino in

Bahrain'6 traditional transit trade will mean for the island
as a Y/holo.
3. Nor does the Govornment of Bahrain set an oxamplo of
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