JEDDAH, 22 February 2005 — After three days of a full schedule from nine in the morning until seven in the evening, the sixth Jeddah Economic Forum wrapped up its activities until next year’s forum which is to be held on Feb. 18, 2006.

At the press conference held after the closing session, Ghassan Al-Sulaiman, vice chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and chairman of the Jeddah Marketing Board, said that the forum was a success by all measures despite some of the problems they had.

“We had problems in the registration but this was perhaps due to the success of the forum in attracting more than the expected number of attendants,” said Al-Sulaiman. He said that the number of attendants exceeded 3,000 which created some problems on the first day of registration. Everything else went well except the last-minute cancellation of some speakers, which caused changes in the program. “Some speakers could not come due to personal reasons and that forced us to make changes,” he said. He commended the organization of the forum and the program.

Although politically oriented sessions, such as the one in which Madeleine Albright with Amr Mousa spoke, had high attendants, Al-Sulaiman said that many economic and social sessions, especially that of Minister of Labor Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi and the embracing womanhood sessions, were packed. He denied that there would be a different chairman of the forum next year if Amr Enany is interested and willing to take charge again. When asked about the budget allocated to the forum, he said that it is the same as last year and once they know the exact expenses and income they will announce it. Again the issue of registration payment by the dollar and the language spoken at the forum being English was brought up. Enany said that the dollar is to attract international personalities who are more familiar with the dollar. Al-Sulaiman added that many international forums and conferences around the world take a currency that is not the local currency.

As for the language, Enany said that we cannot dictate to the speakers what language to speak but Arabic is the official language of the forum. Asked about how speakers are chosen considering that some of them, such as Albright, does not have favorable views of the region, Enany said that they take into account the speakers experience regardless of their views on a particular issue and on having an array of speakers of different backgrounds. “It is time to get over the idea that we should not invite those who oppose our views and should start to accept different views. This is a forum for the exchange of ideas,” added Al-Sulaiman as his personal opinion on this point.

Finally there were questions on what the forum has achieved in the past and what it intends to achieve in the future. Al-Sulaiman said that when it started, the organizers put four goals for the forum: to put Jeddah on the world economic map, to counter negative portrayals by the media of Saudi Arabia and present a positive view, to make the forum a place for communication between businessmen around the world, and fourth to present successful experience from around the world.

“I think we have succeeded in achieving these goals and we hope to continue achieving them in the future,” said Al-Sulaiman. He clarified that the forum is not for presenting a list of recommendations as is done with some forums and conferences, but rather it is to present different views on an issue and allow each person to take what is suitable for them.