A two days workshops for Saudi exporters were held in Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industries (JCCI) in cooperation with the Saudi Export Development Authority as part of the two entities continuous efforts to contribute to the realization of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 of to increasing non-oil exports and diversify the national economy.

The workshops took place on Wednesday and Thursday and focused on to raising awareness of export regulations and procedures by three main themes: "Building Export Competencies", "Export Planning" and "Export Finance Stimulating Initiative".

The training was delivered by Abdulrahman Bin Saleh Alotaibi, a specialist in international trade, who stressed the importance of these workshops in building the export capabilities of the Saudi companies where export knowledge is an important factor to enable companies to identify the best practices and requirements in order to expand to international markets to increase sales and business growth.

The first day was dedicated for building competencies in the field of export, which aims to enhance the skills of the staff of the exporting companies. The best practices were reviewed for planning the career development and identifying the internal needs to form the team that assigned the export activities and identify the roles, tasks and tools needed.

The workshop also enabled participants to Identify development programs that contribute to improving performance and directing programs to be more effective in enhancing international sales skills.

Export Planning workshop was the main them of the second day which introduced participants to international markets access strategies to increase sales through export.

The planning covered the study of the target markets, where participants became familiar with different sources for international market intelligence and best practices to reach new customers. This was followed by discussion of the export finance initiative of the Saudi Exports, which aimed at helping Saudi exporters and international buyers to import Saudi products.

Alotaibi dedicated part of the workshop to providing advices to exporters to expand their customers base in foreign markets and elaborated on the services provided by Saudi Exports such as participation in international exhibitions and trade missions.

He also referred to the reports and specialized studies published to support exporters to identify international markets in terms of import data, opportunities and market access requirements. At the end of the program, he emphasized the importance of export capacity-building and development to enhance export readiness and international markets competitiveness. — SG