By Abdul Rahman Al-Misbahi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia has 112,785 very small, small, medium and large factories with their manpower ranging from five to more than 250, according to a report issued by the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat).

The report said there are 88,239 small factories with each of them employing about five workers. It said the Makkah region has 20,914 small factories, Riyadh 20,199 and the Eastern Province 14,043.

“Together, the three regions account for 62.5 percent of the factories classified as minute,” the report said.

According to GaStat, there were 30,701 dress factories, 15,193 metals factories and 11,562 factories for maintenance and installation of equipment.

It said there were 18,037 factories in various fields with employees ranging from six to 49. It said 5,531 of these factories were in Riyadh, 5,043 in Makkah and 4,381 in the Eastern Province.

There were 5,869 medium factories with between 50 and 250 employees while there were 640 large factories employing more than 250 people.

The report said Riyadh, with 209, topped the regions in the number of big factories followed by Makkah which has 156 and the Eastern Province 155.

It said there were seven small coal factories each with employees not exceeding five.

“There are only 35 people working in the seven coal factories around the Kingdom,” it added.