JEDDAH, 23 December 2002 — The chambers of commerce and industry in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will set up their e-markets within two years when the required facilities and support services will be in place.
It is anticipated that more than 100,000 commercial establishments in the region will benefit from the e-market, which is expected to have a volume of SR1billion annually at the initial stage, according to Anwar Mufti, assistant secretary-general, Training and IT at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“The state-of-the-art market system will pump an additional revenue of SR30 million to the chambers of commerce and industry in the Gulf region,” commented Mufti. He made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting of the technical committee supervising the e-market program of the Federation of GCC Chambers and Commerce.
The participants in the meeting prepared the final draft of the contract to be signed with the company that will implement the project. They also put final touches on the details of subscription to the e-market service. The subscription for the service will begin with SR375.
The services in the initial stage will be limited to chamber members. The service will focus mainly on circulating commercial opportunities, tenders and auctions services in addition to e-marketing between member companies and providing information services. A comprehensive database covering the entire region including businessmen in the region and their specializations, companies and establishments with their products and a full description of the products, will be prepared. The new system will also enable the members to transfer commercial documents. This will help in the speedy closing of business deals without help from a third party.
Abdullah Al-Shaddadi, assistant secretary-general, Training and IT at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Fahd Al-Askar, director general, Information and Computer at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry chaired the meeting. Participants included Abdul Nabi Awad, director, Foreign Trade and Information, Bahraini Chambers, Mohammed Al-Naami, assistant director general, IT, Abu Dhabi Chambers, Khalifa Al-Hayati, director of Information Center, Omani Chamber and Hasan Merghani, technical supervisor, Federation of the GCC Chambers.
