Readout from EXIM Chairman Kimberly Reed's Meetings with Bahrain's Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Commerce

Also Engages with Director of Export Bahrain and U.S. and Bahraini Business Leaders to Strengthen Economic Partnership and Build More Prosperous Region; Commends Bahrain's Leadership in Commitment to the Abraham Accords
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 6, 2020
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MANAMA, BAHRAIN - President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States Kimberly A. Reed held numerous bilateral meetings with senior Bahraini government officials over the past two days on the margins of the 16th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Manama Dialogue, including: Minister of Finance and National Economy H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa; Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani; and Minister of Industry, Commerce & Tourism H.E. Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani. Chairman Reed met with Bahrain's Minister of Oil H.E. Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa on December 4.

L-R: National Security Council Director Jordan Evert, Charge d'Affaires Margaret Nardi, EXIM Chairman Kimberly Reed, Minister of Finance and National Economy H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Head of Bilateral Relations Section Feras Abdulrahman Al Khalifa, Undersecretary for Financial Affairs Yusuf A. Humood
L-R: National Security Council Director Jordan Evert, Charge d'Affaires Margaret Nardi, EXIM Chairman Kimberly Reed, Minister of Finance and National Economy H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Head of Bilateral Relations Section Feras Abdulrahman Al Khalifa, Undersecretary for Financial Affairs Yusuf A. Humood

Chairman Reed and the Ministers focused on the role of EXIM to support U.S. exports to Bahrain and opportunities for cooperation in diverse sectors to broaden U.S. trade and investment in the Kingdom. They also discussed EXIM's historic 2019 reauthorization, including the legislation's new Program on China and Transformational Exports (Program), which directs EXIM to provide financial products to directly neutralize export subsidies offered by the People's Republic of China, helping to ensure a level playing field for U.S. businesses and workers as they compete globally. The Program also focuses on supporting ten transformational export sectors, including 5G, emerging financial technology, renewable energy, biomedical sciences, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and high-performance computing.

H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani
EXIM Chairman Kimberly Reed and Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani

Chairman Reed also met with Export Bahrain's Director Safa Sharif AbudlKhaliq, Bahrain Economic Development Board CEO Khalid Ibrahim Humaidan, and American Chamber of Commerce Bahrain President Qays H. Zu'bi. She had extensive discussions with representatives from American private sector companies in Bahrain, and also engaged several of Bahrain's leading state-owned companies.

H.E. Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani
Chairman Reed, Minister of Industry, Commerce & Tourism H.E. Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani, Export Bahrain's Director Safa Sharif AbudlKhaliq

 Chairman Reed congratulated the Kingdom of Bahrain on its signing of the historic Abraham Accords and reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to deepening its long-standing and friendly bilateral relations with the people and government of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

National Security Council Director for the Arabian Peninsula Jordan Evert and EXIM Special Advisor Edward Newburn accompanied Chairman Reed from Washington. Also joining the meetings were the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain Charge d'Affaires Margaret Nardi and Economic Officer Ryan Flory.

The meetings concluded Chairman Reed's participation in the IISS Manama Dialogue, where she represented the United States as the U.S. delegate. The Manama Dialogue is a unique international security and regional diplomatic summit that draws influential thinkers, government officials, and leaders together to find solutions to the region's challenges. Government delegations from more than 20 countries also conducted face-to-face diplomacy through bilateral and multilateral meetings during the Dialogue.

ABOUT EXIM:

EXIM is an independent federal agency that promotes and supports American jobs by providing competitive and necessary export credit to support sales of U.S. goods and services to international buyers. A robust EXIM can level the global playing field for U.S. exporters when they compete against foreign companies that receive support from their governments. EXIM also contributes to U.S. economic growth by helping to create and sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. In recent years, approximately 90 percent of the total number of the agency's authorizations has directly supported small businesses. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt.

For more information about EXIM, please visit www.exim.gov.

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