Bahrain hopes to ease its cement predicament by producing its own building materials and importing more from countries other than Saudi Arabia. Bahrain's construction drive was hit hard last month when Saudi Arabia, its main source of cement, decided to slash its cement exports to Bahrain. With insufficient storage capacity, the Gulf state has been grappling with a cement crisis and struggling to diversify its import portfolio. Economies are surging in the world's biggest oil-exporting region after a more than six-fold rise in oil prices since 2002 triggered a construction boom, which drained the building materials market. Shortage of cement supply, caused mainly by soaring demand, poses a challenge to government and contractors who run construction projects in the Gulf. Bahrain's Contractors Society says the small Gulf state imports more than 90 percent of its cement from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. With the latter slashing exports to approximately half of its...