I would particularly like to thank Mr. Al Zayani and the other Members of the Board of Directors for their kind invitation to speak to you today. I have been asked specifically to talk to you about the current financial situation in Bahrain, particularly in comparison to international developments in the GCC region.
There is general agreement that the turning point in the current crisis was the collapse of the American investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. This event forced economists and policy-makers to revise their assumptions about the course of the financial crisis.