Advanced countries in general rely heavily for development on small projects and small businessmen. Most governments favor such enterprises since they realize that small businesses and businessmen are vital factors in economic development.
In the US, for example, there are more than 25 million small businesses — and this is 93 percent of the total number of businesses. In Germany there are eight million, in Italy four million and in Japan 10 million. In all countries, it is small businesses which generate the majority of jobs — in most cases, well into the millions.
Supporting small businesses depends, to a large extent, on the general policy for dealing with them and the financial support given in addition to consulting and scientific studies. The small establishments provide numerous job openings and opportunities for discovering new talent.
A number of countries — including the US, India, South Korea, Canada and Singapore — have even government departments to look after small businesses and to ensure that they are able to carry out the functions which they were set up to do.
In Saudi Arabia, there are more than 500,000 small businesses. The number would increase dramatically if there were more care plus the required support. The question is: What do we give to this very important sector? Who looks out for the concerns of small business owners? The answer to both questions is, unfortunately, nothing. In fact, no encouragement at all has been offered to small businesses in the last seven development plans. And I doubt whether future plans will include much encouragement.
Small business owners are hostages to old rules and outdated regulations that care nothing for their aims or concerns. They are also hostages to a foreign work force. There is no government department that takes care of them and consequently, much time is lost in going from one government office to another in order to satisfy meaningless bureaucratic requirements.
A businessman may have to prepare at least 10 different files to be submitted to, and approved by, 10 different offices before starting a small business. The chambers of commerce and industry do little, if anything, to solve these problems. Banks do not support small businesses and small businesses face intense competition from larger ones and this often drives the small businesses into bankruptcy and so they disappear from the market. Big investors open small businesses in order to gradually monopolize the market which leads to small businessmen going bankrupt and losing millions of riyals.
