Beshr Bakheet is the chairman of Bakheet Investment Group (BIG) with a fully paid capital of SR 60 million. He established Bakheet Financial Advisers (BFA) in early 1994 with a mission to develop financial products for local banks. BFA had SR 11 billion under advice before merging with BIG. BFA prides itself in raising the Saudi investor’s community awareness through its reports, lectures, presentations and website.
Today, BIG is a licensed investment firm specializing in asset management, financial advisory and custody. BIG started its operations in March 2006 and is currently managing mutual funds and DPM across the GCC.
In an interview with Diana Al-Jassem of Arab News, Bakheet outlined the scope of development in the Kingdom in the coming days and years, and explained the growing market influence on the present and future generations.
What steps would you suggest for further increasing the Kingdom’s productivity and how do you propose to achieve it?
Developing the national infrastructure, improving the quality of educational programs, expanding and improving health and social services, and increasing housing projects to offset the population growth are among the major steps that can increase the productivity. I also would love to mention that it’s important to promote more joint ventures between local and international firms with a view to increasing foreign direct investment, and decreasing the country’s reliance on oil by increasingly diversifying the economy. In fact, all these steps can be taken through policy decisions and by motivating the public through the media, conferences and creating awareness of their benefits to both the nation and its people.
What important strategies the Kingdom should adopt to check the outflow of money to overseas destinations?
Saudi Arabia has many guest workers and they send their earnings to home countries. Opening the economy for non-Saudi nationals to buy real estate and invest in local companies will reduce money transfers from the Kingdom and keep the capital in the local market intact. Hence we need projects and funds in which non-Saudis can participate, like construction and real estate that will benefit the entire population.
What is the biggest challenge facing the Kingdom’s economy today?
The challenge is finding the national labor force with the right education and qualification to fill the job vacancies that require a high degree of skills and specializations. The Saudi population is growing rapidly and there is a need to providing new job opportunities for our youth. We also need more hospitals, schools, houses, and upgraded infrastructure facilities that can go hand in hand with the program of job creation. Some other challenges are: The Income distribution within the different levels of society, and high consumption of oil and gas domestically that can pose threats to the volume of our oil exports.
What are the economic activities that are predominant and what are your suggestions for developing new markets within the Kingdom?
Although activities related to oil and gas are dominant, I still believe petrochemicals are the most profitable sector driven by support from the government.
We need to develop Islamic tourism by improving the infrastructure on one hand and the hospitality sector on the other.
What role do you see for SMEs in the Kingdom’s economic development? How do you evaluate the Saudi experience in terms of SMEs so far?
The SMEs in Saudi Arabia are in the private sector. Their main activities are trading, manufacturing and service. They constitute 90 percent of the private enterprises. Thus, SMEs are a strong source for jobs, innovation, developing new products and promoting the entrepreneurial culture. In Japan, SMEs are the backbone of large-scale establishments. In Saudi Arabia, support for SMEs was hardly there until few years ago. We should learn from Japan’s successful track record in this regard.
How do you see women’s contribution in the labor sector?
Women play a vital role in society. We notice lately the demand for recruiting women has increased significantly, as the Saudi government is promoting Saudization. We expect women to contribute in all areas that keep contributing to the social and economic growth. After all, they represent 50 percent of the economy.
