Saudi SMEs to gain more leverage in line with Kingdom’s Vision 2030

By Fatima Muhammad JEDDAH — Gassan Al-Sulaiman, governor of the newly formed Small and Medium Enterprises Authority, noted that they are working on providing a definition for the small and medium enterprises which they will issue within two weeks. He told Saudi Gazette that they have over 150 initiatives that are to be presented to the authority board to support some 1,200,000 SMEs in the Kingdom. He added that the SMEs “contribute some SR600 billion to the GDP and we have to increase this number four times to meet the 2030 Vision. This is a great challenge, but we must achieve it to bridge the gap between us and developed countries.” In his speech at Effat University on the Women Entrepreneurship Day (WED) held Monday, Al-Sulaiman said there is a serious government move to support SMEs, first of which is the establishment of funds and the establishment of the Small and Medium Enterprises Authority last April. “I am positive since that 2030 Vision has focused on the private sector and has put great hope on the private sector to develop and diversify the Saudi economy.” He called on fresh graduates to think of entrepreneurship, since on the global level, women tend to actively participate in the markets through their own projects.” Before the discovery of oil, Haj, Umrah, farming and fishing constituted the entrepreneurship projects in the old days, he said. However, following the boom of oil, the public sector offered many opportunities and therefore small businesses struggled to attract employees. Now there is a number of economic challenges, but Al-Sulaiman noted that there are still hopes looking at the opportunities the entrepreneurship projects can offer. Speaking at the side of the event, Sufana Dahlan, the UN ambassador of the WED in Saudi Arabia, said the social culture barriers deprived women from getting the support they need to start there own businesses, therefore it is necessary to have gatherings where women can get encouragements. The second factor is that the graduates do not meet the market needs, therefore there is a need to reform the education system. Finally, there are regulation and legislation obstacles, therefore there is a need to look again in the regulations of the SMEs. Dahlan said they put much hope in the new SMEs Authority.