Bahrain's financial sector has already shown an improvement over the first quarter of the year, according to a senior Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) official.

'Our financial sector is 40 years old and I am lucky to have experience of most of it,' said CBB banking supervision director Khalid Hamad.

He was speaking at a seminar on 'The Resilience of Bahrain's Financial Services Sector,' organised by the Bahrain Chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (BCICAI).

'During those 40 years our financial sector has been subjected to a series of stress events and shocks, some global and some regional, including wars, financial crises and large-scale sovereign and corporate defaults,' he noted.

'In each there was an initial shock and then a recovery and in each and every case Bahrain has emerged stronger and more resilient,' he added.

'The financial sector is backbone of Bahrain's economy and its resilience in weathering the global and regional economic storm is laudable despite the local upheavals we experienced for the past eight-and-a-half months,' said BCICAI chairman T D Balraj.

'Much of this credit is attributable to the sound regulatory framework kept in place by the Central Bank of Bahrain,' he added.

'Human greed, stupidity and politics will always be with us,' said Bahrain Association of Banks chief executive Robert Ainey.

'Greed and stupidity can be controlled by regulation and punishment. The regulator controls stupidity by ensuring that management of companies are fit for the purpose,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service