JEDDAH, 9 February — More than 15 percent of traders in the region practice commercial fraud according to a top official of the Commerce Ministry's branch in the city.
The illegal practice can be generally divided as the sales of items flouting regulations, smuggled articles and trading in forged foreign currencies, said Muhammad Al-Harbie, director of the ministry's Jeddah branch.
A special committee of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been tasked with fighting against the criminal practice and has been striving to make people cautious of such frauds. The culprits are made to pay huge fines and close their shops.
Adoption of uniform regulations against commercial frauds was one of the significant recommendations made by the Union of the Chambers of the Gulf Cooperative Countries in a forum hosted by the JCCI last year. The move has been endorsed by the commerce ministries of all member countries. The recommendations also included the setting up of local committees to fight commercial fraud in all GCC countries and the starting of local organizations to protect consumer interests in addition to organizing continuous seminars and mobile expos to educate people on the matter, Al-Harbie said.
About 95,000 commercial registrations practicing various trades were made in Jeddah until 2001, the official added.
Meanwhile the Commerce Ministry is currently at the final stages of drawing up the regulations against market flooding, according to some sources in the ministry. The market-flooding committee headed by Fawaz Al-Alami, undersecretary for technical matters at the ministry, has been studying various aspects of the regulations in addition to identical regulations implemented in other countries. The new regulation will cover flooding faced by Saudi products from foreign manufacturers and the complaints against Saudi companies of flooding in outside markets. The committee will also look into complaints of Saudi companies against flooding. Representatives from ministries of finance and national economy, industry and electricity and Customs are also members in the committee. (Al-Eqtisadiah)
