RIYADH — The Shoura (Consultative) Council on Tuesday approved a new law aimed at ensuring fair competition and protecting the rights of consumers in the local market. The Council session was chaired by its President Sheikh Abdullah Al-Asheikh. The 38-article draft law envisage encouraging fair competition and prevent practices to monopolize market harming the interests of the consumers. Fahd Al-Anzi, deputy chairman of the committee for economic and energy affairs, read out the major features of the law that guarantees improving the market environment and spurring the growth of the national economy. The Council also started deliberations on the report of the committee for administration and human resources on the basis of the annual performance report of the Ministry of Labor for the last fiscal year, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. In its report, read out by committee chairman Muhammad Al-Naqadi, it was proposed to address the issue of rising cost for recruitment of foreign workers, especially domestic help. The committee also called for evaluation of Nitaqat Saudization program in a way embracing more flexibility with regard to size and scope of activities of various companies and establishments. The report underlined the need to intensify Saudization drive in private sector and creating a uniform data base of Saudis working in this sector. Taking part in deliberations over the report, several members underlined the need for increasing percentage of Saudization in the private sector. One member said that the phenomenon of runaway maids and the absence of sufficient number of housemaids have prompted the ministry to come out with a special bylaw for the recruitment of domestic workers. The regulations to govern relations between the recruitment offices and the citizens have resulted in the closure of several offices and flourishing of black market of housemaids, she said. The member also called for relying on recruitment companies rather than recruitment offices for hiring domestic workers.
