Bahrain Mirror: The Bahraini Minister of Energy Abdulhussain bin Ali Mirza said that oil prices will continue to drop, following the Doha meeting failure, where 18 countries gathered, including OPEC member states to reach a decision.

In a Parliament meeting on Tuesday (April 19, 2016), the minister defended the urgent measures taken by the government last February, raising gasoline prices and said: "Credit rating agencies are pressuring Bahrain to decrease subsidies in the budget or else our credit ratings will be lowered even more. You know our ratings have decreased in the past years until we became the least on the Gulf level."

"If our credit ratings are lowered again, then companies and institutions will refrain from giving Bahrain loans, which means that we will find no one to loan us," he added.

"Thus, Bahrain is obliged to continue these measures reducing expenses, for everyone knows that we rely 86% on oil revenues, and our revenues have decreased to 70% in only one year after oil prices dropped from 115 dollars per barrel to 30 dollars."

Arabic Version