Manama ranked most financially attractive city in the world

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Manama has topped the list of the world’s most financially attractive cities, with Riyadh, Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi Dubai and Muscat all in the top 20.

Global cities are ranked by AIRINC according to costs and living conditions, financial and lifestyle attractiveness, to evaluate mobility, and Bahrain’s capital came out on top, according to the data firm.

Manama came top, with Riyadh in fourth place, Kuwait sixth, Abu Dhabi seventh, Dubai 12^th and Muscat 16^th.

“GCC economies have invested considerable sums in making themselves more attractive to international businesses in line with ambitious region-wide economic diversification efforts,” the data company said in a press release.

“As the first GCC member to begin diversification, the Kingdom of Bahrain offers one of the easiest and most cost-effective environments to set up and operate a business in the world. Businesses operating in the Kingdom enjoy 0 percent tax and 100 percent foreign ownership [is] allowed.”

Bahrain is increasingly investing in technology and the digital economy and was recently named the fourth most improved economy in the world in the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business report.

As well as ranking first in the world for financial attractiveness in the AIRINC index, Manama also jumped 15 places for overall attractiveness, to 48^th.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com; editing by Seban Scaria)

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