An overwhelming majority (98 percent) of the consulting firms operating in the Kingdom are foreign, with the number of national offices standing at a mere 150 out of 10,000 companies, experts revealed.

The volume of investments in consulting offices ranges between SR500 million and SR600 million, with the share of the national offices reaching only 2 percent, Asim Arab, head of the National Consulting Committee, told local media.

According to Arab, local consulting firms are facing a series of challenges, notably poor product quality. As an example, he points out how some of these offices sell copied feasibility studies at prices ranging between SR5,000 and SR 10,000, an unprofessional practice that eventually tainted the image of local firms.

The second challenge, according to Arab, is that foreign consulting offices capture the lion’s share of the market. Some foreign firms vie for higher prices but end up awarding the projects to national offices for lower prices.

Foreign offices then sell these projects to government-run departments. The irony is that government agencies don’t award these projects to local companies since they lack confidence in them, but many times end up receiving documents developed by national firms.

To tackle the problem, Arab proposed the creation of a bureau to handle national consulting offices, a plan which he stated is to be announced soon by the Ministry of Commerce.

The role of the proposed bureau will be to improve work milieu and drive unprofessional firms out of the market.

This plan will greatly help local firms, Wihaib Halawani, an official at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, since national firms vie for only 20 percent of the market share.