RIYADH, 2 March 2004 — About 40 percent of the shops in the gold market at the city center of Batha remained closed yesterday ten days after the deadline for Saudization of the sector.
“Rest assured that with the serious warning issued against violation of the gold shops’ Saudization, only those legally able to sell gold will remain in the business,” Deputy Labor Minister Ahmad Mansour told Arab News recently.
A survey of the gold market in Batha yesterday showed that more shops had reopened since Feb. 21.
“About 20 percent of the shops that were closed on Feb. 21 have opened after complying with the government directives to employ Saudi nationals. Other shops are expected to open Tuesday,” said a salesman in a shop in Manila Plaza.
“There doesn’t seem to be a problem because there’s gold for everyone to buy, although it’s obvious that many shops are closed,” said Noemi G. Villaflores, a nurse at a local hospital here, who was shopping for gold ahead of her annual holiday.
Shopkeepers were largely unenthusiastic about Saudization.
“It will take some time before we can feel the positive effects of the gold souk Saudization,” said Omar Said, a salesman for the last ten years.
Farouk Al-Misri, a shopowner, has also noticed no significant improvement.
“Shopowners face problems implementing Saudization,” commented another salesman.
“Many of the Saudi salesmen are new in the business. Since they are basically here for the salaries, their hearts are not necessarily in their job. Sometimes, they don’t even know the price of a gram of gold, so before they can ask the owner or someone more senior, the customer has gone to another shop,” he said.
This could eventually mean losses for businesses, in particular since Saudi staff get salaries starting from SR2,500. Foreigners often earned less.
Another problem is that many of the Saudi salesmen cannot speak English.
Expatriate customers can feel annoyed by a salesman who cannot communicate with them and just walk away.
“There may be good effects to Saudizing the gold shops since it generates jobs for Saudis, but there are problems,” said Abdullah Al-Hamami, who has been a salesman for nine years. “Compared to many Saudi salesmen, especially the new ones, foreigners like Yemenis were better because they could speak English,” he said.
“Many Yemeni salesmen even spoke Tagalog, which was good because many of the customers are Filipinos,” said another Saudi salesman.
Yemenis used to constitute some 90 percent of the total number of foreign salesmen. The rest were Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.
Meanwhile, field inspectors of the National Training and Employment Program have found that 40 jewelry shops out of a total 346 shops in Jeddah had violated the Saudization regulations.
Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Hazza, secretary-general of the program, said his officials would continue to inspect gold shops to make sure they implemented the Saudization rules. Inspections have so far covered shops in Bawadi, Yamama, and Balad gold markets, he said.
Ali Saeed, director of the Commerce Ministry’s office in Taif, said some businessmen in the city closed down their jewelry shops because they failed to find competent Saudi workers. But reports from the northern city of Tabuk indicate that gold shops in the region were 100 percent Saudized.