Saleh Fareed Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – General Electric works with its partners in the Kingdom to help diversify the country's economy and empower Saudi youth and women through training and creating opportunities to put their skills to work, according to an official. While showcasing the newest product portfolio of General Electric at the recently held Saudi Water & Power Forum 2013 in Jeddah, Mohammed Mohaisen, CEO, Power Generation Products and Services Sales of GE Power & Water, Middle East, told the Saudi Gazette “Saudi power and water forum is one of the major keys we target on the yearly basis and we always make sure we have a strong presence to touch base with our customers and we also showcase what new we have.” Speaking of this year's participation at SWPF, he said “our technologies focus on strengthening the supply side to achieve more output with less fuel deployment in turn driving all-round efficiency.” Pointing out at the challenges facing the Saudi market, Mohaisen said “we indeed support Saudis to meet their solutions for the challenges and how to help Saudis to reach the goals and aims driven by stakeholders.” He added that Saudi Arabia is one of the top countries on energy consumption per capita, “unfortunately this consumption is driven by inefficient way,” he said. He continued “we understand our client's challenge and we consider it as our challenge. Today looking at the way the energy is consumed in Saudi Arabia, there are lots of steps should be taken in that direction by the community and we want to make sure we have enough awareness campaigns to let people understand that if energy is provided to them in a low cost. It does not mean producing that energy is cheap on the country but because energy is subsidized and fuel is subsidized and in that case customers do not appreciate the real cost of producing that energy.” He noted that GE studies showed the demand is growing year by year and there will be an increase of demand 8 percent for the upcoming 15 years. He said that GE has diversity of solutions of addressing the efficiency needs. “ We did study the Saudi market just looking for different ways of how efficiency can be dealt with across the Kingdom,” he said. On the side of their recent investment in Saudi Arabia, Mohaisen replied “we are continuing investing in the country and in the last three years, we invested $350 million for our facility in Dammam. Saudi Arabia is a fast growing market and all projects considered very highly by us. Recently we announced the award of PP13 and PP 14 projects which will deliver 3.8 GW for the two plants.” Putting the spotlight on the professional training opportunities for Saudi professionals to develop their skills and lead energy sector operations in the Kingdom, he said “we are also investing on the human capital. Saudization has reached around 70 percent in all levels within our facilities and we are not doing that to fulfill of Saudi requirements but because we believe that there is a young generation we can invest in to be the new leaders of our company in Saudi Arabia.” According to Mohaisen, GE is also encouraging Saudi energy sector professionals and youth talent to develop their skills through training sessions offered at our GE Manufacturing Technology Center and the GE Technical Academy in Jubail, developed in cooperation with the Saudi Technical & Vocational Training Corporation.
