Crédit Agricole reported leaving Bahrain
Crédit Agricole is to close its Bahrain operations and relocate its staff to Dubai, a number of Gulf newspapers and Reuters, citing International Financing Review, are reporting.
Crédit Agricole officials could not be reached for comment, and the bank’s Bahraini webpage does not mention the move.
However, the online edition of the Bahrain-based Gulf Daily News quoted Crédit Agricole Bahrain senior manager Hassan Darwish as saying that the relocation to Dubai would probably be completed by the end of the year.
“He [Darwish] was not able to say why this decision had been taken,” the article said.
It noted that Crédit Agricole currently has operations in both Dubai and Bahrain, and that it employs about 65 staff in Bahrain. According to Crédit Agricole's Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) website, it has two locations in Manama.
“There were rumours that some foreign banks in Bahrain were considering relocating in the wake of the unrest earlier in the year, but the French bank is the first financial institution in the kingdom to opt for a move to Dubai,” the Gulf Daily News report said.
In its report, which it said was based on an article in Thomson Reuters-owned International Financing Review, Reuters said the Crédit Agricole move to Dubai from Bahrain had been under discussion "for some time" but that the final decision had been influenced by "the unrest which affected the country earlier this year".
Crédit Agricole did not respond to a request for comment, Reuters quoted IFR as saying.
As reported, Bahrain, an island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia, was among several Middle Eastern states to be struck by unrest earlier this year when mostly majority Shi'ite protesters took to the streets, promting a violent crackdown by the Sunni-led government that at one point saw Saudi tanks brought in. Grand Prix races scheduled for March and October were cancelled, and in June, the US included Bahrain on a list of human rights-violating regimes.