Bahrain will launch a media strategy aimed at rehabilitating and developing the information and communication sector, Gulf News reported Thursday.

The five-year strategic plan, starting this year, aims to promote tolerance and national unity, and support professionalism in the industry, said Samira Rajab, minister for information affairs.

Other aims include highlighting Bahrain’s reforms and achievements in rehabilitating its domestic and international image, and encouraging investment in media and communication, Gulf News reported.

“The strategy comprises 45 initiatives and projects that will be implemented gradually in accordance to priority, over the next five years,” she said.

Cities are planned for audio-visual industries, film production, digital production and book publishing.

Some of the initiatives already implemented include drafting a law for media and communications, and a nationwide survey of the media sector.

A national center for training media professionals is another of the planned initiatives, news website al-Shorfa reported.

Rajab, a former columnist with Akbar Al Khaleej, Bahrain’s oldest newspaper still in circulation, said the strategy would seek to raise standards at the official Bahrain News Agency, by strengthening its links with Arab and international news agencies, Gulf News reported.