Foreign investment sought in education

The Shoura Council has urged the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) to seek foreign investment in the health, education and retail sectors to improve services and help boost the economy.
Fahaad Al-Hamad, the body’s assistant president, said the council made the proposal during discussions on SAGIA’s annual report. “SAGIA must try to bring in multinationals to improve services in the education, health and retail sectors,” Al-Hamad said, quoting from the proposal.
Abdelelah Saaty, dean of the College of Business in Rabigh, applauded the council’s proposal and said it would significantly improve health and education services for Saudis and expatriates.
“We are very late. Qatar and other Gulf countries have already moved far ahead of us in promoting foreign investment in health and education. This is a big challenge for SAGIA,” Saaty told Arab News.
“We now have the successful experience of Qatar and other countries and SAGIA should prioritize securing foreign investment in health and education.”
He said there was a good market for such services. The private sector, for example, provides only 20 percent of the Kingdom’s health needs.
“We have to invite famous western universities and high-tech hospitals such as Carnegie Mellon, Oxford, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and American Hospital of Paris to open branches in the Kingdom,” Saaty said.
Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco on Tuesday signed a joint venture deal with John Hopkins Medicine to provide advanced health services for 350,000 employees and their family members.
“There is a terrible need for such foreign investments in the Kingdom. They will help us achieve several important goals and add value to our economy,” Saaty said. It would also help improve the quality of health services in the Kingdom, he said.
The Shoura meeting also called for an assessment of SAGIA’s performance over the past few years. Some members blamed the authority for the decline in foreign investment by 58 percent from 2010 to 2012.
They also argued that SAGIA was operating without a strategic vision, and urged it to open overseas offices to attract foreign investment.
Last December, the Higher Education Ministry said it was studying applications from foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom.
“The ministry has received tens of applications from several foreign and Arab universities and we are discussing a plan with consultants to draft a special law for them,” a ministry official said, adding that it would discuss the issue with SAGIA.
“We are serious about granting licenses for outstanding foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom.”
Such institutions should be among the top 100 universities in the world and follow the Kingdom’s rules and regulations, he said.
The ministry hopes that the move will raise the standard of higher education in the Kingdom, and reduce the number of students on government scholarships at foreign universities. At present more than 150,000 Saudis study abroad under the King Abdullah Scholarship Program.
“Allowing foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom will create competition among local universities and improve the quality of education,” one teacher said.
The law overseeing private universities states that such institutions should have a minimum of five partners, and at least three colleges that provide specialties needed by the market. The minister appoints the deans of these universities. The ministry also supervises and conducts regular performance reviews of these institutions.