Businessmen from Bahrain and Qatar aim to set up a bank with capital of $135 million by the end of 2001, the official Bahraini news agency GNA reported Saturday, June 9. It said the bank, based in Manama and with a branch in Doha, would help boost "commercial and economic cooperation" between the two countries, which in March settled a longstanding territorial dispute through a World Court ruling.
"I hope the project will be launched by the end of the year," future shareholder Adel Abdullah Fakrou told GNA after a first meeting of the Bahraini co-founders. Bahrain and Qatar have announced plans to launch maritime links and to build a causeway linking their Gulf states, as well as for cooperation in the fields of energy and electricity. — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
