JEDDAH — Making it easier for women to obtain licenses and other documents necessary for starting a business has helped increase the numbers of economically active female entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia, according to Abdul Rahman ibn Ahmed Al-Yami, a member of the Kingdom’s Shoura Council.
“The council has approved several decisions for women in the Kingdom in the last five years, including their right to register commercially with their names instead of using a legal agent,” said Al-Yami. “This matter has been an obstacle for women, where it was limiting her activities in the investment field”.
He said that until recently women couldn’t practice any commercial activity without a male agent who represents her in administration and in dealing with the procedures for setting up a legal business in the Kingdom.
Noura Al-Saggaf, a Saudi entrepreneur, told Arab News that when she registered her event-planning firm, Events Co., last year, she faced “obstacles” related to the fact that she wasn’t married, and then was only able to obtain her licenses after finding a married man to be the official director of her company for the purposes of obtaining the proper paperwork. It has been traditionally the case that women who start businesses need a male agent to deal with the bureaucracy. Officials like Al-Yami say these blockages are gradually abating.
“Sometimes...it is just a case of changing procedures,” Arab News pointed out in its March 10 editorial about International Women’s Day. “For example, for a woman to register a business in Saudi Arabia can take a month; in Bahrain it takes an hour.”
Nevertheless, the facts show that women are making progress in the area of skilled jobs and entrepreneurship. (Lower wage service-sector jobs are still predominantly a man’s world, even in retail shops that cater specifically to women.)
