RIYADH, 5 December 2005 — On behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman inaugurated the second Riyadh Economic Forum last night, setting the stage for a dialogue between the public and private sectors on what needs to be done to harness their resources for a meaningful partnership.
The deliberations of the forum were held at the King Faisal Hall and attended by Cabinet ministers, senior government officials and a large number of businessmen. Security in and around the venue was tight and all vehicles entering the King Faisal Hall and the adjacent Riyadh Intercontinental Hotel were subjected to rigorous screening.
The three-day forum is expected to discuss recent domestic and international economic challenges facing the Kingdom, which has already become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Organizers of the forum told Arab News that there was growing awareness in government circles of the private sector’s role in the national economy.
This message was also delivered by the Kingdom’s leadership when it called on the private sector to shoulder its responsibility vis-à-vis the socioeconomic challenges facing the Kingdom by providing more job opportunities for Saudis and boosting investment for further economic growth.
A spokesman for the forum said the REF’s main theme was to support sustainable economic development in the country by collecting opinions across a broad economic spectrum and highlighting them in all possible means via studies, lectures and symposiums.
According to the organizers, this year’s forum will discuss seven topics: Partnership between public and private sectors; transparency and accountability; foreign labor; readiness of the private sector to join WTO; IT industrial estates; railways, roads and seaports; women’s participation in the national economy.
Speaking on the occasion, Prince Salman paid tributes to the organizers of the forum and their creative initiative in addressing important issues. He assured them of the government’s full support.
Earlier, Abdul Rahman Al-Jeraisy, president of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, stressed the need for creating transparency in the government’s rules and regulations and making official data available to the private sector.
Speaking to Arab News, Hassan Mulla, a prominent Saudi lawyer and chairman of one of the sessions, said the scope of partnership between the private and the public sector was raised at the first Riyadh Economic Forum and would again come up for discussion this time. “We no longer talk in terms of we and you. It’s us as we both are in the same boat. Thus, we should seek to minimize the differences between the private and the public sector,” he said.
