The restrictions Saudi women face are a cause of resentment, stifled growth and has resulted in some Saudi women, especially those in the Eastern Province, deciding to make the daily half-hour journey across the King Fahd Causeway to operate their businesses in Bahrain.
Papermoon is one such company. Founded in 1990 by Saudi businesswoman Nehal Alomari, the gift-wrapping enterprise currently has branches in Saudi Arabia. But for her there were compelling reasons to have the company’s head office in Bahrain.
She cites the “numerous available facilities available to the business community irrelevant of gender” and the ease of operating business. “Managing it in Saudi Arabia was too much of a headache. In our Saudi operations we do so via male representatives and administrative officers alongside a bigger group of service providers in various fields — again all male representatives,” she explains.
In Bahrain, however, the rules are much more business-friendly. “Staff of both genders can easily work under one roof with business facilities and rules that govern business transactions being the same for both men and women: In fact, while operating in Bahrain a businesswoman like myself will not stop to think about the small picture of logistics that are always a major issue in all Saudi businesses,” Alomari says.
It is easier too to set up business in Bahrain she says but she does not see a trend developing for women in Saudi Arabia. She says that those who have made the move did so because of their personal and family circumstances. “I believe that most Saudi women will never put business and career over her family duties — and I mean not only the nuclear family but the extended family as well,” she says.
Family values are important too for Mai Al-Kasabi, another Saudi businesswoman who set up business in Bahrain because of the stumbling blocks in the Kingdom.
“I was handling my father’s office, Al-Kasabi Travel Agency, from 1993 until about 1998 and didn’t have a real chance to meet people at that time as I did most of my work by phone from home. However, when I moved to the Eastern Province with my family to the Saudi Aramco camp in Dhahran, I decided to continue in business by arranging travel packages and summer schools for some of the residents, a mixture of various nationalities — American, European and Middle Eastern. Two years was enough time to make good contacts in the market with different airlines and relevant businesses and in 2001 I joined the Saudi Businesswomen Forum which gave me the encouragement I needed to start my own business,” she says.
Despite help from my father’s company, taking care of staffing, chamber of commerce paperwork and other required procedures, Al-Kasabi found the process of opening her business in Saudi Arabia difficult. However, her luck changed when she met two Bahraini women who wanted to open a travel agency. Doing it in Bahrain with its business-friendly environment and its many facilities for investors from other Gulf states was far easier. “I was able to perform all the procedures myself with the Bahraini government agencies and managed to open a travel agency in Bahrain with the two partners which we appropriately named ‘The Travelers’.”
The office opened in 2004. Four years later, Al-Zahid Travel Group of Saudi Arabia became a partner — “a very big step” she says — and now the plan is to open a second branch in Bahrain Financial Harbor, the new waterfront financial center in Manama. “There I can meet with airlines as well as hotel representatives and other professionals connected to the travel industry as well as provide services for business travelers,” she says.
Convinced that opening her business in Bahrain has enabled her to broaden her horizons and improve her business skills, she also thinks that being there has helped etch a good impression about Saudi businesswomen. Her future plans include opening a branch in Doha.
