Bahrain is revamping its rules for investment trusts, as it looks to pitch the country as a global wealth management hub and attract the type of super-rich residents that have flocked to the neighboring UAE in recent years.
The government has already made some tweaks in response to feedback from potential investors and is now working on a broader rewrite of laws to convince wealthy families and trusts to domicile themselves in Bahrain, Noor Ali Alkhulaif, CEO of the Economic Development Board, the country’s inward investment agency, said in an interview.
The UAE has convinced many of the world’s wealthiest families, including the likes of hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, to open offices in the country to manage some of their riches, lured by low taxes, long-term residency programmes, new infrastructure, and year-round sunshine. Bahrain was the region’s main financial hub in the 1980s and ’90s, before the rise of Dubai; it would like to recapture some of that glory.