ABDUL AZIZ AL-AYAF Secretary General of the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry

PM Communications: In the line of King Abdullah's will to modernize the Kingdom, and following his new set of reforms, many projects are taking shape here in the Eastern Province, such as the Dammam Technology Zone, and the Oil and Gas Projects. What are the measures implemented by the Chamber of Commerce in order to attract foreign investment in these lines of business?

Abdulaziz Al Ayaf - Secretary General of EPCCI: In addition to these projects, the Chamber of Commerce has planned the launching of a Training City as part of its Saudization drive. We have also proposed a major real estate company for exploring the potentiality of real estate. To be called the Eastern Province Public Real Estate Company, it is to develop leisure facilities, shopping malls, commercial installations and tourism activities. The Chamber, throughout our sectorial committees, conceived all these companies to help materialize the initiatives introduced by King Abdullah. These committees, through their programs, promote major economic sectors in the Eastern Province: industries and services.

The tourism sector, I emphasize here, has a very high potential in the Eastern Province. We are located only three hours and a half driving distance from Riyadh, which is a highly populated area. They do not have the geographical advantages as we do, like the vast stretch of beaches and nearness to the GCC countries - Bahrain, Qatar, Sultanate of Oman and United Arab Emirates. So we were looking into domestic tourism from other cities in Saudi Arabia, and from neighboring GCC countries as a first target. The plan of the Supreme Commission of Tourism is to open the country and attract tourists from abroad, but before that we want to accommodate our own people that travel from one Province to another. We have to develop the infrastructure for accommodation and recreational facilities. This will eventually help to cater to the needs of the foreign tourists.

So we are talking about the industry sector, tourism, and the development of real estate. Eastern Province has a vast idle land that can be developed. We have probably more than two hundred kilometers of virgin beaches that could be developed in Jubail, Khafji, Al-Hasa, and locations nearer to Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. So we, at the Chamber, try to highlight these opportunities, and we work with our counterparts in Europe, United States and Canada, to set up partnerships between our members and business people in these countries.

PM Communications: Do you have any partnerships with different Councils of Chambers, for example, in England?

Abdulaziz Al Ayaf: We have twenty Chambers nation-wide. We are a member of the Council of Saudi Chambers, which is a member of the Arab Chambers, and we are also represented in the ICC (International Chambers of Commerce).

So the Chamber here tries to trigger economic activities in many channels. We provide necessary information for potential investors about the country. We will also provide information about members and their potential in order to develop two-way contacts. Whatever studies or information we have will help and guide them to better investments and positioning.

Moreover, we host specialized seminars, symposiums and exhibitions that highlight new business opportunities. In the coming November, we will have the International Gas Conference. It is a big event that will be attended and participated by the Americans, the Europeans, Japanese, Malaysian, and some Middle East countries. Basically, it is co-organized by the Chamber and the Ministry of Petroleum. It will show where the gas situation stands, in terms of exploration, strategic reserves, regulations, progress of companies that are already here (Total, Sinopec, Shell, Eni, Lukoil, Repsol), which are working on new explorations.

Besides, we try to encourage trade missions to come to the area to explore all the potentiality of this region. And also we send specialized delegations from here to certain countries. Today we had the French Ambassador here, and we agreed with him to send a delegation to France. We also spoke to the British Commercial Attaché about sending an oil and gas delegation from here to Scotland.

We are trying to build up these bridges, and we have our agenda with local Government agencies. We make sure they get our message that many positive things can happen for Saudi Arabia and other partner countries in the world by enhancing and developing cultural links. Like education, for example. We could send more students, boys and girls, to our partner countries to study there and learn about their cultures, making it easier for international universities to open chapters in Saudi Arabia. So we bridge these gaps between our people and our strategic partners.

PM Communications: Last year's event for Saudi Arabia was the accession to the WTO (World Trade Organization), a big event which Saudi Arabia has been waiting for ten years. Now, the international competitiveness is here and many companies in Saudi Arabia might be not well prepared for that big step. So is the Chamber of Commerce putting into place a very special committee to support small businesses?

Abdulaziz Al Ayaf: We started a program last January, right after the accession of the country to the WTO. What we will be doing throughout 2006 is to launch an education drive about WTO aimed at our members. The Saudi negotiating team, which worked for the last ten years, has about fifty members, and each one them is in charge of a certain sector (education, training, industry, customs, environment, agriculture, financing…).

The Chamber has agreed that these distinguished members of the team will come and lecture here, so we invite the representatives of the sector concerned to come and attend. But we went further; we agreed with these members of the negotiating team, to give us also a written work on their views and advice from their experience on these sectors; how to adjust, to merge, to improve quality, the threats, the pluses and the minuses. This is first hand information we are giving to our business community. Actually, we have arranged four lectures so far.

Of course, we have the economic and information departments at the Chamber studying the protocols and the commitments that the Kingdom has signed, and we feed the private sector with this information. We have a small unit, called the "WTO Unit", giving all the information and answering all the questions and inquiries from our members. Nation-wide, we encouraged the Council of the Chambers of Commerce to set up a center. They have finished the study now, and it will be implemented soon. This WTO Center will look after legal cases, as well as helping members in any difficult situation. Moreover, it will train businessmen and act as an advisory office to advice people where to go and what to do in case of a specific problem in this area.

Of course, in a general way, we encourage our businessmen to be more professional, improve quality and reduce cost. These goals will not be achieved unless some of them merge to, for example, do collective buying for raw materials or reducing the costs of R&D.

In a way, small and medium businesses will be affected. The competition will be most tough that is for sure, especially in the services sector. But in a way, it will help the businesses to become creative, and they will have to adjust themselves. Within five years from now, the Kingdom will be a much stronger competitor.

There will be a price to be paid, for sure. But it will also mean a big gain for these corporations, and at the end, we have no choice. We will encourage even more joint ventures. Americans by themselves have more than three hundred joint ventures, and all of them are successful projects. Not even one of them is a losing proposition.