Page 323 - Records of Bahrain (7) (ii)_Neat

Economic and financial affairs 713

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of around £7 million a year. Ponrl fishing in no longer an
important local industry and the Ruler is too rooted in the
past to think of challenging the Japanese in the field of
cultured pearls. Agriculture and fishing, both of which
have never received any active encouragement from the Bahrain
Government are also of only marginal value, The experimental
farm run by the Government has never been given the support
and encouragement which the■Agricultural Trials Station at
l
Has al Khaimah has enjoyed from Her Majesty1o Government and
from the local Rulers and grov/ers and which has resulted in
the Trucial States becoming an exporter of vegetable produce.
Bahrain could have matched -he success of the Trucial States,
but the lack of encouragement given io the experimental farm
has been aggravated by the unfair system of land lensoholding,
by tlie corrupt marketing arrangement 1 and by the prohibition

imposod by the Ruler on the export of fresh vegetables to
Qatar, Bahrain's natural market but, unhappily, also the

Ruler's enemy. In any event the dwindling supply of fresh
water, which at the present rate of fall in the water table
threatens to run out in about the year 2000, deprives
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agriculture of any long-term future in Bahrain, As far as
fisheries are concerned, Bahrain appears to have lost her
opportunity si«. . a possible Anglo-Kuwaiti partnership is now
exploring the possibility of basing a fishing industry on
Dubai; and there will be no room in the Gulf for two fishing
industries.
7. If fishing and agriculture offer no future for Bahrain,

nor do tho other present supports of her prosperity offer any
bettor prospects. Oil royalties will drop aftor 10 years and
Possibly end after 20, whilo shortage of water may thereafter
/force. • «
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