RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resource has launched an initiative aimed at developing local supply chains for around 9,000 industrial products.
This happens as the ministry seeks to raise the rate of industry and local content’s growth, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The initiative aims to enhance awareness of local supply chains and the industrial sector in Saudi Arabia.
It also aims to develop mechanisms for studying local supply chains, in addition to solving the challenges facing small and medium enterprises in entering supply chains.
This comes as a result of the importance of collecting the necessary information regarding products and making it available to the relevant authorities.
This initiative would enable identifying the manufacturing opportunities that attract local and foreign investment.
Saudi Arabia is also working to inaugurate 59 logistic zones to bolster supply chains and logistic services, the Saudi Press Agency reported citing Minister of Transport and Logistics Saleh Al-Jasser.
He was speaking on Sunday at the opening of the two-day annual Supply Chain and Logistics Conference taking place in Riyadh.
He said these zones will enable the Kingdom to play a regional and global role.
A total of 18 industrial zones were chosen to expand their business scope to become a logistical industrial hub, the minister added.
Deputy Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Osama Al-Zamil spoke on behalf of Bandar Alkhorayef, minister of industry and mineral resources.
He said the ministry is working, in cooperation with government agencies and the private sector, to ensure the development of local supply chains and activate the role of small and medium enterprises and their integration with large strategic industries to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
In an exclusive interaction with Arab News on the sidelines of the Local Content Forum in September, Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Ibrahim Alkhorayef said Building capabilities in local content will not only serve the local market but will also help Saudi Arabia play a stronger role in the supply chain globally.
“Local content is a concept that would definitely be an enabler for the industry. It would be an enabler for existing installations, to come up with new capacities to improve their performance in sales and profitability,” said Alkhorayef.
He added that local content will increase both local and international investments in Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom launched the National Transport and Logistics Strategy last year. The strategy aims to position the country as a global logistics hub connecting three continents, and improve all transport services in support of Saudi Vision 2030.
A host of game-changing projects are planned to help achieve the strategy’s economic and social goals, along with improved governance to enhance the work of the organizations involved. It also reflects the renaming of the Ministry of Transport as the Ministry of Transport and Logistics Services.
It has four main goals: To transform Saudi Arabia into a logistics hub; boost the quality of life across the country; enhance fiscal sustainability; and improve the performance of public entities.