48 January 2022 www.bahrainthismonth.com business bites A project to establish the first factory producing green hydrogen in Bahrain has been unveiled. The Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA) President, Dr. Abdulhussein bin Ali Mirza, discussed the project with a high-level delegation from Al Judy Company, led by its Chairman, Ibrahim Ali. The meeting, which was held at the SEA office at the Bahrain Financial Harbour, was also attended by the company’s board member, Kurt Christensen. Dr. Mirza outlined the SEA initiatives and projects for 2022, including a plan to benefit from the green hydrogen. The delegation gave an overview about its plan to establish a fourMegawatt plant for the production of green hydrogen – a first in the Arabian Gulf region. The company which holds a patent registered in Germany, has also been conferred the gold medal for best invention. The factory will be established according to the highest level of international standards in construction and operational stage. The project will be built in its first phase on a land with a total area of 20,000 sq.m and an estimated cost of USD150 million. ESTABLISHMENT OF BAHRAIN’S FIRST GREEN HYDROGEN PLANT DISCUSSED The Kingdom of Bahrain has won two global awards for its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) strategy by the fDi Intelligence Awards 2021. The awards are based on the performance of 34 International Promotion Agencies (IPA’s), focusing on IPAs that stood out in rankings published by ‘fDi Intelligence’ in the past year. fDi Intelligence named Bahrain the winner of ‘fDi’s choice Bespoke Award for Infrastructure Developments’ making the Kingdom the only GCC country to receive the award in the field. According to the fDi Intelligence Awards 2021, the award is in appreciation of the Kingdom’s development projects that have led to the enhancement of infrastructure capabilities across several areas including increasing the capacity of airports by 75 percent. This is in addition to investments worth billions of dollars in transportation networks, and huge investments in the real estate sector, with a focus on medical services and the education sector. The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) was awarded ‘fDi’s choice Bespoke Award Staff training’ in recognition of EDB’s upskilling efforts, as well as its strategic approach to developing technical, business and leadership skills. GFH Financial Group has acquired a portfolio of medical offices in the US worth around USD200 million as part of its strategy to build a portfolio of stabilised assets driven by solid long term fundamentals and operating growth. Spread across seven states – North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas –the medical offices portfolio consists of 11 assets and 400,000 sq.ft. of space. The Sharia-compliant deal brings the value of the GFH’s group’s US healthcare portfolio to over USD400 million. “The pandemic has underlined a need for more outpatient services and continued demand for healthcare services. As a result we are seeing strong investor sentiment in the medical offices sector. This trend is particularly true in the US, where healthcare spending comprises around 18 percent of GDP, compared to around 10 percent for most other developed countries,” said Co-Chief Investment Officer – Real Estate at GFH, Nael Mustafa. The portfolio comprises assets that are leased to some of the largest names in US healthcare, including Cleveland Clinic, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Novant Health, Spartanbrug Regional Healthcare System, Texas Health Resources and Baylor Scott & White Health. The assets cover a range of specialist care sectors and are positioned on hospital campuses or near hospitals with a solid customer base across the Southeast, Midwest and Southwest. BAHRAIN WINS TWO GLOBAL FDI AWARDS GFH Makes Foresighted Investments
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