JEDDAH, 3 June 2004 — A Saudi investment company has signed a deal with two Chinese and Malaysian firms to establish the country’s first women’s industrial city in Jeddah at a cost of SR375 million.
Covering an area of 600,000 sq. m., the new facility will have 83 factories, Al-Yaum Arabic daily said. The two foreign firms will operate the city and train 10,000 women for two years, it added.
The paper did not say when the new industrial city would be launched. The report comes on the heels of a recent Cabinet decision to expand business and job opportunities for Saudi women.
Hussa Al-Aun, vice chairperson of the Women’s Consultative Council in the Makkah region, said the Cabinet decision would encourage women to invest some of the at least SR15 billion which they have on deposit in banks.
Al-Aun, who has been campaigning for the women’s industrial city for the past seven years, said the new facility would be launched with a female Asian work force who will be replaced later by trained Saudi women.
The Cabinet last Monday adopted a nine-point program that instructs government departments to license women’s businesses “in accordance with the rules and teachings of Shariah.” It also urged government departments serving women to open women’s sections within a year.
The chambers of commerce and industry in the Kingdom have been instructed to set up committees of qualified women that will, in cooperation with the authorities, encourage the creation of new businesses and jobs for women.
The Cabinet also gave instructions for the allocation of public land for women-only industrial areas. The Manpower Development Fund must also focus on the training and employment of Saudi women, it added.
Al-Aun stressed the need for also setting up women’s industrial cities in the Eastern and the Central Provinces.
Al-Aun has been working to mobilize support for women’s projects in GCC states. “My plan is to meet with Saudi businesswomen in order to carry out a number of women’s projects in the Kingdom,” she said. She said that more than SR5 million had been spent on various studies.
