RIYADH, 6 October 2003 — Today is a landmark event in the capital. The Riyadh Economic Forum (REF) will be opened at the Riyadh Exhibition Center under the patronage of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard.
A spokesman of the organizing committee told Arab News that the forum’s objective is to stimulate economic development in the capital and, more specifically, to improve its investment climate, boost small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and create jobs as well as business opportunities for Saudi women who have an estimated SR62 billion in bank deposits.
Abdulaziz Jazzar, managing director of Saudi Research and Publishing Co. and chairman of the organizing committee of the Riyadh Economic Forum, has said the REF, which was inspired by the crown prince, will go a long way in the comprehensive development of Riyadh on both the socio-economic and cultural fronts.
The opening ceremony at 6 p.m. will be followed by discussions on the Business Sector. Three papers will be presented related to the Kingdom’s economic environment: “The Realities and Challenges”; “The Issues facing Small and Medium Enterprises” and “Women’s Participation in Economic Growth.”
One of the key speakers on opening day will be Prince Abdullah ibn Faisal ibn Turki, chairman of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), who will discuss challenges on the investment front. He will also discuss private sector strengths and weaknesses relative to the challenges. In particular, Prince Abdullah will address whether the economic reforms go far enough to attract foreign investors. The general budget, public debt, foreign trade and the balance of trade will also come under scrutiny. Other subjects to be discussed include human resources development and demographic changes.
The seminar will also focus on obstacles facing institutional investors. Both businessmen and institutional investors will discuss their experiences in dealing with the bureaucracy and put forward suggestions for streamlining procedures.
Another session will be devoted to a review of the Kingdom’s overall position in terms of investment prospects and the international situation. The fourth session will address the challenges on the economic front — legal, organizational and administrative — and ways of dealing with them. Educational, social and cultural issues will also be debated. There will be discussions on the key sectors of industry and related services.
The skills required for developing the SME sector will be the theme of discussions in which SME representatives will participate. These discussions will highlight the experience of countries that have successfully supported SMEs.
Promoting women’s participation in the job market will be a topic at a special session. The papers will seek to identify various employment avenues for women. Participants will look at the role of education in human resources development and what still needs to be done in order to create job opportunities for women. At present Saudi women are mainly in the educational, health care and banking sectors. Their presence in the private sector is negligible with women only 3 percent of the total number of employees. This aspect of the women’s employment market will also be examined since there are 2.3 million female students — 48.7 percent of the total student population.
There are a total of 214,000 Saudi women in the government sector, with some 180,000 — 84 percent of the female work force — employed as teachers. The employment growth rate for women doctors is 4.7 percent while for nurses, it is 7.5 percent. In the pharmaceutical sector it is 13.7 percent. More than 11,000 Saudi women work in the banking sector. The number of businesses owned by Saudi women is over 22,000.
The second day’s discussions will include a review of the judicial system and the reforms it is undergoing. The participants will emphasize the restructuring on judicial laws as part of the reform process. They will also evaluate adequacy in terms of the number of judges and the need for special courts for rapid settling of disputes. More importantly, the papers will discuss the need for transparency in judicial proceedings. Other points of discussion related to the judicial forum will be the formulation of a mechanism to avoid duplication in legal machinery as well as plugging the loopholes in the legal system so there is no scope for misinterpretation of the law.
Other topics of discussion will include government policies and their impact on the private sector, diversification of the economy away from oil, private-sector participation in the management of industrial estates, privatization programs, partnerships between the public and private sectors and how to make them happen, infrastructure development in gas, electricity and transportation. The recommendations of the forum will have a far-reaching effect on the economic development of the capital and its transformation into the Kingdom’s IT metropolis.
