DM Monitoring
RIYADH: Saudis await Cabinet approval for National Entrepreneurship and SMEs strategy The Saudi Cabinet has endorsed the National Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Enterprises Strategy, providing a strategic roadmap for broad economic diversification, enhancing the growth of local companies, and reducing cost of doing business in the Kingdom.
Presented by Dr Majid Al-Qasabi, Saudi Minister of Commerce, and Chairman of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Monsha’at), the 13 focused programs are aimed at expanding SME access to finance, reforming Saudi’s regulatory environment, and improving capability and capacity.
The initiative aims to deliver over 500,000 direct and indirect jobs, grow SME contributions to the Kingdom’s gross domestic product to 35%, and make the Kingdom a leader in entrepreneurial knowledge and skills indices by the end of the decade.
The new strategy represents a key departure from the baseline economic policy of business creation under Vision 2030 toward facilitating existing entrepreneurs to scale and compete in global markets.
Seven pillars of this program are:
(1) open market commercial innovation platforms,
(2) industrial cities and special economic zones to implement specialized business services,
(3) deepen SME integration into government and large enterprise procurement,
(4) attract and localize innovative international tech companies,
(5) improve Saudization levels sector-by-sector,
(6) improve financial literacy and reduce credit costs,
(7) encourage financial institutions to lend to SMEs on a best-practice basis.
Cross-economy sector coordination will be led through inter-agency governance, and connect entrepreneurs through a new ecosystem-wide database with global and local commercial opportunities.
