Bahrain will enact data privacy and data sovereignty laws in the next few months, Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive Officer of Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), has said.

This will be key part of Bahrain's digital economy strategy, Rumaihi said here at the first-ever Amazon Web Services (AWS) summit.

Rumaihi said that the drafting of the proposed laws have begun and that the private sector will also be consulted before the enactment of the laws.

"This (enactment of the laws) will be done in the next couple of months", he said.

Teresa Carlson, Vice President-Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, said these kind of changes initiated by Bahrain will trickle down to other countries in the region.

Meanwhile, AWS on Monday announced plans to open an infrastructure region in West Asia by early 2019. The new AWS Middle East ( Bahrain) Region will consist of three availability zones at launch.

Currently, AWS provides 44 availability zones across 16 infrastructure regions worldwide, with another 14 availability zones, across five AWS regions in China, France, Hong Kong, Sweden and a second Govcloud Region in the US expected to come online by the end of 2018.

AWS also announced today that it will launch an AWS Edge Network Location in the United Arab Emirates in the first quarter of 2018.

Fintech hub

Rumaihi said that enactment of data privacy and data sovereignty laws would enable Bahrain attract tech companies into the island nation.

Bahrain had in the last one year taken special efforts to attract fintech startups around the world to expand and thrive in the Gulf.

As part of such efforts, Bahrain had introduced the first onshore regulatory sandbox in the entire region. It had also recently come up with equity and debt funding crowdfunding regulations which allow businesses to have access to finance.

Srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in