Jeddah Commercial Forum (JCF) issued its latest recommendations on Saturday to further enhance business transactions and attract more investors. “The forum confirms the need for around SR300 billion to finance projects this year 2009, and more than SR5 trillion to finance projects on the both private and governmental sector on the coming few years,” said Dr. Majed Mohammed Qaroob, head of the Forum's Scientific Committee, “in addition to the huge amount of money we need for more than SR50 million in debt to the Commercial Papers Commission at Jeddah Chamber for Commerce and Industry.” There is an urgent need for the changing of commercial and economical rules, as well as the judgment sector and the office of the ombudsmen, he added. The first recommendation called for the necessity of financing the projects and companies that had been affected by the world financial crisis by increasing the amount of the government's capital, specially the funds that are specialized in financing the small and medium projects. “We want to issue licenses for the foreign banks to activate their work in the Kingdom as a step to attract foreign investment in the Kingdom,” he added. The second recommendation is to revise the commercial rules in order to cope with the sustainable development. “There is an intensive requirement to make the commercial judgment more flexible to cope with the needs of the economic development and commercial transactions,” Qaroob further said. “We should revise the education syllabus, such as diploma and higher studies, to address the new science without violating Islam and Shariah rules.” Such new rules require that officials and judges in the chambers of commerce and courts, respectively, across the Kingdom to take intensive courses and development programs on general commercial laws, he further said. The Forum's recommendations showed the necessity of giving the Shoura Council members and experts more developed programs on contracts, legal system and formulating rules, he added. “We need to cooperate with the consultants in the governmental sector who have worked for several years in the judicial commissions and commercial courts to benefit from their experience,” Qaroob noted. “We also need to unify the commercial standards and concepts, as well as establish a center for the commercial arbitration and national authority for the lawyers.” The next recommendation focused on the importance of facilitating the governmental procedures to support the investment environment and make it more attractive, as well as making executive lists for each project that will be done under the supervision of the Shoura Council to ensure that these lists are observing the rules and serve the interest of Saudi investment. “Changing the civil service system is one of the most important steps that should be taken in the coming years in order to give the opportunity to each ministry to assign qualified employee in the career that best suits his education level,” Qaroob said. “This step can play a very important role in satisfying the ministries' needs,” he pointed out. The Forum also underlined the need to establish rehabilitation programs for employees to prepare them to deal with customers and offer the best service, he added. The Forum also stressed the the need to establish commercial commissions to fight management's corruption and “make all deals electronic so we can ensure the validity of the procedures and other transactions. The Forum also recommended the importance of consumers' protection and drive against commercial fraud by reforming the rules that pertain to consumers' protection, further proposing the imposition of punishments on those who commit violations, Qaroob said. The forum called for increasing the control and supervision by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Municipals, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Culture and Information and the commercial chambers. The media is also encouraged to raise consumers' culture and awareness level.“We want to activate cooperation between the Ministry of Culture and Information and other governmental sectors that specialized in commercial work.” Moreover, the Forum recommended that banks should focus more on infrastructure development. __
