The Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF), once the most prestigious event on the Gulf-Middle East region's business networking calendar, has been shelved “indefinitely,” it was announced here Thursday. The reason cited for doing away with the annual forum that used to be promoted as a primer for world leaders heading for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was so simple that “it bordered on the lame,” said a business executive who had not missed a single JEF since its inception in 2000. The reason, according to Mustafa Sabri, secretary general of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), the parent body of Jeddah Marketing Board, organizer of JEF, is “delay in getting permits for the convention.” Sabri, read out to the press a statement by JCCI Chairman Saleh Al-Turki to that effect and then refused to elaborate on the difficulty in getting the permits, saying only that the bodies tasked with issuing the permits should be asked about it. Sabri, however, did say that the rigmarole of getting permits has always been par for the course in JMB's annual organizational effort. Neither Al-Turki nor JEF Chairman Sami Bahrawi attended the press conference to announce what many suspect could well be the demise of JEF, signs of which were stark last year when drastic changes took much of the sheen out the event. The forum, which had over the years drawn such big names as George H. W. Bush, John Major, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Helmut Kohl, Madeleine Albright, George Soros, Mahathir Mohamed, Alwaleed Bin Talal, Queen Rania and Hillary Clinton among a host of others of no less eminence, was “badly downgraded” last year, the business executive told Saudi Gazette on condition of anonymity, “and that had suggested to us that the end was near.” Last year, the venue of the forum was shifted to the Jeddah Exhibition Center, a place for trade fairs and quite unlike the Hilton where in previous years the JEF used to be held on an uncompromisingly grand scale befitting its line-up of world-class speakers. Then again, most of the international vendors associated with building up JEF were abruptly removed last year, which further took away “much of the professionalism” from the event, the executive said. Moreover, the Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF) on Jan. 25-27 has stolen the thunder from JEF. Now in its third year, GCF is organized by Amr Al-Dabagh, Governor of Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA), who was the founding member of JEF and had built up the forum into a world-class event with the aim of promoting Jeddah as a regional business networking hub. – With Saleh Al
