JEDDAH: During an event congratulating Second Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Prince Naif on his recent ascension, members of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) discussed with the prince ways of boosting business and economic development in Jeddah and throughout Makkah province. In six presentations the business community highlighted the major challenges facing economic development.
The event was planned months ago but was dominated by the subject of Thursday night’s assassination attempt on Prince Naif’s son, Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs Prince Muhammad bin Naif. The high official and the JCCI discussed myriad subjects, including the global financial crisis and Saudi Arabia’s economic policies, infrastructure, Jeddah population growth and industrial development.
JCCI Chairman Muhammad Al-Fadl said the Kingdom has emerged as one of the strongest economies in the world as a result of its wise banking policies that avoided the pitfalls that beset other banking systems.
Various ranking members of the JCCI gave the six presentations: Zaki Farisi spoke on infrastructure and traffic bottlenecks and criticized the Ministry of Finance for not providing sufficient funds required to solve Jeddah’s infrastructure problems; Hussein Abudawood spoke on the necessity of expanding the industrial cities; Ali Basamh spoke about improving services at the Jeddah Islamic Port; Muhammad Al-Fayez spoke on promoting cooperation between district centers and police; Ali Hussein Alireza spoke about commercial paper; Abdullah Ridwan addressed issues facing contractors; and Abeer Salamah spoke about setting up a labor company.
In response to a question raised by one of the attendees, Prince Naif said there was a shortfall in locating proper jobs for women that insures her privacy and is proper to the nature of the Saudi society. He said that this would be avoided in the future by locating proper jobs for the Saudi women. “Not all jobs are suitable for women,” he said. Prince Naif revealed that there is a major residential project that will be completed very soon. The project will give priority to women with special needs, such as divorced women. The government will aid women with no income to establish a source of income, he said.
In response to Salamah’s presentation, Prince Naif said they are going to permit foreign labor companies to open in different parts of the country. The companies will be contracted by the government to be the sponsors of foreign workers, and they will provide the market with foreign laborers.
“It is among the top priorities of the Labor Ministry and it has reached the corridors of the Council of Ministers,” he said.
The companies will even provide daily and weekly contracts to individuals, institutions and companies. “The establishment of these companies will eliminate the illegal workers problem in the Kingdom,” he said.
“The Kingdom is currently deporting 1,000 illegal aliens daily,” he said, “And there are 11,000 illegals currently detained in Saudi jails.”
He said that there is no necessity for overstayers to stay a single day in jail but the current situation is unavoidable. Once the companies are established, foreign labor will be under the sponsorship of the newly established companies instead of individuals. Prince Naif spoke about the Human Resources Development Fund, which aims to support young Saudi men and women to get jobs.
Prince Naif criticized the Transport Ministry for not locating proper security centers on the Kingdom’s highway network, which is estimated to be over 70,000 km long. He pointed out that this would be fixed in the near future. There will also be more highway patrols. He pointed out that the Interior Ministry has located a number of helicopters to participate in monitoring the traffic on the highways. Prince Naif pointed out that between 10 and 20 people die every day on the roads, which has prompted the Interior Ministry to conduct a study to avoid such accidents.
After listening to business community’s concerns, Prince Naif expressed his own concern about the increase in prices of commodities in the Kingdom and called on merchants to lower prices of commodities after reports of Ramadan price gouging emerged. “It’s a win-win situation,” said Prince Naif. “Lower prices equals more sales.”
(Muhammad Al-Humaidan and Samir Al-Saadi contributed to this report.)
