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FinObservatory

External balance sheets

Bahrain

In 2024, Bahrain had a net international investment position of 47.3% of GDP, owning 383.3% abroad and owing 336.0%. Across the four instrument legs it reports in 2024, 35.5% is equity-like (direct investment and portfolio equity) and the remainder is portfolio debt and other investment.

The balance sheet through time

YearNet positionAssetsLiabilitiesReservesCurrent accountCrisis
19706.5%39.9%33.5%16.0%n/a
19756.8%215.8%209.1%26.2%-18.4%
1980484.0%1334.3%850.3%25.5%4.9%
1985870.3%1982.4%1112.1%37.2%0.9%
199081.2%1188.7%1107.5%23.9%1.3%
199581.5%959.1%877.6%18.1%3.4%
200071.5%1046.5%975.0%16.6%8.8%
200546.1%748.9%702.8%11.9%8.9%
201048.4%697.8%649.3%19.0%2.9%
201569.1%375.8%306.6%10.4%-2.3%
202038.8%373.7%335.0%6.2%-9.1%
202447.3%383.3%336.0%9.7%4.8%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 All figures as a share of GDP. Every fifth year shown, plus the first and last. Crisis column is the FinObservatory atlas, deduplicated across its five chronologies. Methodology

What it owes, and in what form

The composition of external liabilities. Direct investment and portfolio equity are equity-like: their value falls when the country does badly, so the foreign investor shares the loss. Portfolio debt and other investment (mostly cross-border bank lending) are fixed claims that do not.

YearDirect investmentPortfolio equityPortfolio debtOther investment
1995first3.9%0.0%0.1%96.0%
2024latest28.7%6.8%21.8%42.7%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 Each leg as a share of the four legs, which sum to 100 percent. EWN's total-liabilities aggregate also carries a financial-derivatives leg, left out here on both sides of the ratio, so these shares describe a smaller stock than reported total liabilities wherever that derivative leg is non-zero. First and latest year with a complete instrument split (30 years available). Methodology

Bilateral direct-investment positions

Where Bahrain's direct-investment positions are located, and where inward positions come from. These are annual position stocks, not flows. The reported World observation supplies each total; the ranked counterpart rows describe its published geography and can be incomplete or confidential.

Outward direct investment

Positions abroad, grouped by the immediate destination economy.

Official reported World total

$19.23B2017

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Kuwait KWT$5.30B
India IND$4.47B
United States USA$1.27B
Cayman Islands CYM$1.25B
Egypt EGY$726.0M
United Kingdom GBR$706.4M
Saudi Arabia SAU$606.1M
Jordan JOR$572.0M
Luxembourg LUX$518.6M
Turkey TUR$487.5M

Coverage in 2017: 71 named economies among 83 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Inward direct investment

Positions in this economy, grouped by the immediate investor economy.

Official reported World total

$45.48B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Kuwait KWT$16.11B
Saudi Arabia SAU$9.90B
United Arab Emirates ARE$4.44B
Libya LBY$3.24B
India IND$1.84B
Cayman Islands CYM$1.60B
Turkey TUR$1.34B
Qatar QAT$919.4M
Japan JPN$870.7M
Oman OMN$742.2M

Coverage in 2024: 118 named economies among 129 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Reported versus counterpart-derived

Official reported data (O) are the reporter economy's submission. Counterpart-derived data (SCC) are IMF staff calculations from counterpart submissions. They are alternative views of the same direction, not addends, so they are shown side by side and never summed.

DirectionOfficial reported (O)Counterpart-derived (SCC)
outward$19.23B (2017)$4.55B (2024)
inward$45.48B (2024)$21.29B (2024)

Source: IMF Direct Investment Positions by Counterpart Economy Values are full US dollars, scaled only for display. Top 10 named economies shown. Methodology

Reading this page

The crisis atlas records no crisis for Bahrain since 1970. That is what the record says. It is not a statement that none occurred, and it is certainly not a statement that none will.

EWN is a reconstruction. Where a country never reported a position, the authors estimate it, and the file carries no flag separating a reported cell from an estimated one, so this page cannot mark them either.

Methodology