The council’s 41st regular session held under the chairmanship of its Vice Chairman Abdul Rahman Al-Barrak stressed that such a body should have a legal status and should function under the aegis of the Supreme Economic Council headed by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.

“The house approved the Ninth Development Plan following the opinions submitted by the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy of the council,” Shoura Council Secretary General Muhammad Al-Ghamdi said. He added that the members agreed to recommend an authority for SMEs.

SMEs in Saudi Arabia represent almost 93 percent of total enterprises and account for about 24.7 percent of total employment. There are an estimated 500,000 registered SMEs in the Kingdom, about a third of them are in Eastern Province.

The Kingdom’s Ninth Development Plan is to be implemented from 2010 to 2019 by the Ministry of Economy and Planning. In the Ninth Plan, a major emphasis is being placed on balanced development of human, social, economic and environmental resources.

The development plan also focuses on improving the living standard of citizens, developing local human resources, ensuring an integrated development in all regions and creating a competitiveness among manufacturers of national products.

To improve efficiency in performance, the council also recommended a regular follow up to the implementation programs carried under the development plan.

Discussing an unrelated topic, the members said strict penalties should be imposed on persons who leak government information.