Economic experts at the Productive Families Forum confirmed here Sunday that the sustainable economic development of Saudi society will not come through donations and charitable assistance to productive families alone, but can only be achieved by giving these families the chance to participate in social work. These views were expressed by a large number of economic and social experts in the first session of the forum which aims to expand productive families' contribution to the national economy. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah Region, inaugurated the forum on Saturday with the participation of Saudi ministers and businessmen, in addition to several charity organizations. Engineer Kamal Al-Hamad, assistant secretary-general of the Federation of Gulf Engineering in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, reaffirmed that the patronage of King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, is a clear indication of his keen interest in the welfare of Saudi citizens. The King gives top priority to the care of citizens with his basic concern being eliminating poverty and advancing the level of income of Saudi families, he said. Al-Hamad presented different definitions and concepts of small projects explaining that these projects differ from country to country according to varied possibilities, economics and social components. He said these factors include the nature of production, quality of traditional crafts produced by modern industry, population density, availability of manpower, degree of rehabilitation, general level of wages and income, and other economic aspects and social features. “There are several important steps that should be taken by productive families to achieve success,” he said, adding that “There is a genuine need to remove the obstacles facing these families, especially financial difficulties”. Other businessmen also emphasized the need to support productive families with money and help them by facilitating procedures rather than by giving them loans. “The new trend in economic development is to provide productive families with opportunities to facilitate their work by giving them advice on marketing and management and by making small loans available to them so that they can carry out their projects,” said Badr Ahmad, executive manager of Blue Sky Travel Company. The small projects conducted by productive families often fail for several reasons, such as the low education level of the families and their lack of marketing and management experience. “This underlines the need for the establishment of training centers in towns and villages in the Kingdom to help productive families gain the skills that they need to make their projects successful,” he said.
