On May 2-3, CLDP led a workshop for Bahrain’s parliament on Value Added Tax (VAT) implementation.  Bahrain plans to draft legislation and implement a VAT in late 2018 in accordance with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) framework agreement on VAT, which has already been implemented in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia (KSA) and United Arab Emirates (UAE).  CLDP experts from the UAE and KSA discussed international standards and regional challenges implementing VAT.  CLDP also conducted interactive sessions on how policy consideration for the new VAT system would affect government accountability in Bahrain, as well as the various principles behind why some commodities, such as medicine, food, education and financial services, could be exempt or zeroed-out under a future tax regime. The participants, which included legal advisors and civil servants from both the Council of Representatives (lower house) and Shura Council (upper house) also completed several robust exercises with respect to VAT implementation in Bahrain.