The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain have switched to a Friday-Saturday weekend in a move that will bring the two Muslim Gulf states closer to the working week in the West and many other countries.
The governments of both the UAE and Bahrain recently decided to change the longstanding Thursday-Friday weekend in the public sector in favour of Friday and Saturday starting September 1.
While Friday, the Muslim weekly day of prayer, remains unchanged as a day off, government departments will have Saturday off beginning September 2. Gas-rich Qatar, another Gulf Arab state, already applies the Friday-Saturday weekend formula in official establishments.
The private sector in the three Gulf countries is not bound to follow the government, but companies in some economic sectors already apply a Friday-Saturday weekend to be more in line with international markets, which are closed on Saturday and Sunday. The seven-member UAE federation includes Dubai, a business and tourism hub, and Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich capital which has launched a series of massive industrial and real estate ventures. Bahrain is a key banking centre in the Middle East.