If Bahrain continues to rely on low-cost foreign labour there will be no incentive for employers to improve the productivity of the local workforce.

That was the claim by PricewaterhouseCoopers financial services strategy group director Andrew Nevin at a conference on the challenges of managing low productivity in the region, at the Sheraton Hotel, organised by Etqan Consultancy.

'There is no doubt that there is a skills gap in the region compared to the West and that is a reality that both Bahrain and the GCC have to address,' he said.

'There is a massive skills gap and that is why the region has to import high-skilled labour from elsewhere.

'Without the skills of the developed world we would not have got where we are but employers have to be better organisations to develop productivity to international standards.

'Employers need to address this challenge and need to be committed to skills development and training. They need to engage employees to make a tangible difference to the economy,' he added.

'Bahrain is small and will always need to bring in specialists from outside but on a global scale it can do better,' he said.

'The country needs to examine the need for a low-skilled foreign workforce because this workforce takes away the need for the private sector to invest in technology and removes the incentive to increase productivity.

'If you continue to have access to cheap labour then there will be no change in productivity.

'The government has a huge role in investing in training but industry must understand that to have a developed economy you have to have high-paid workers.

'Bahrain and the GCC have to get used to the idea that they have to rely less on inexpensive labour and look to a high-wage economy if it is to be efficient and overcome the problem of low productivity.'

Alba is a classic example of how to develop industry to a high skills base organisation, according to chief operating officer Mohammed Mahmood.

'When we were set up in 1970, we were an old technology operation with a lot of manual labour and we were labour-intensive,' he said.

'Today we have an automated process with multi-purpose cranes and systems and a multi-skilled workforce.

'We need to continue to train our workforce in new skills and develop employees and we have given a presentation here in which we argued that training is not a cost but an investment,' he said.

'Alba started with more hands than brains and is now an operation with more brains than hands and we have to encourage employees to learn on the job.

'That is why 90 per cent of our workforce who are well-paid are now Bahrainis,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service