During his participation in a workshop entitled "Legislative and Judicial Reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the Minister of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Competitiveness Center (NCC), Dr. Majid Abdullah Al-Qasabi, confirmed that the Kingdom's economy is witnessing major and fundamental transformations in light of the ambitious goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, citing the Kingdom's highest growth among the G20 countries. The workshop, which was organized yesterday in New York by NCC in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the permanent delegation of the Kingdom to the United Nations, and the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration, was held at the headquarters of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). It was attended by experts and representatives of 70 countries participating in the work of the 77th session of the second working group meeting concerned with the settlement of disputes with the UNCITRAL committee. It aimed to familiarize the delegations participating in the work of the UNCITRAL session, law firms, beneficiaries, and the business sector with developments in the legislative environment in the Kingdom, as well as developments in the judicial system, including mechanisms for resolving disputes and alternatives for settling them in line with international best practices. The minister pointed out that these transformations have provided many new promising opportunities for the business sector, which need to be accompanied by a highly efficient legislative and regulatory environment, including alternatives to settling commercial disputes, indicating that NCC has worked with government agencies on more than 700 reforms so far to enhance competitiveness of the Kingdom globally. For her part, the Vice Minister of Commerce and CEO of NCC, Dr. Iman Habbas Al-Mutairi, discussed during the workshop--attended by the Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Dr. Abdulaziz Muhammad Al-Wasel--NCC's efforts in enhancing the competitiveness of the Saudi economy by encouraging investment, entrepreneurship, innovation, and productivity, as well as developing the legislative and procedural environment in order to harmonize the efforts of government agencies around a unified vision. She indicated that to ensure that the legislative and procedural reforms in the economic and developmental aspects achieve their goal, NCC sought to launch the "Private Sector Visuals" and "Istitlaa" platforms to receive proposals from the business sector, individuals, government agencies, interested persons, and specialists on draft laws and regulations, which would contribute to enhancing transparency in the legislative environment and the involvement of the private sector in the process of enacting legislation. In turn, Secretary of the UNCITRAL Committee and Head of the Department of International Trade Law at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, Anna Joubin-Bret, spoke about the role of the UN Commission in setting and developing unified legal texts aimed at promoting global trade, in light of the increasing growth of the economic and commercial field internationally. CEO of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration, Dr. Hamed Hassan Meera, commended the development in the judicial and justice field that the Kingdom witnessed during the past years, pointing out that it contributed effectively to creating the appropriate environment for business practitioners. In the same context, the Head of the Dispute Settlement Department and the General Legal Adviser of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration, Christian P. Alberti, reviewed the role of the center and the achievements it has achieved since its inception, in addition to dealing with cases related to the settlement of various disputes. At the end of the workshop, the Supervisor General of the Legislative Office at the Ministry of Justice, Musab Al-Jammaz, spoke about the ministry's initiative to "activate mediation," to be the preferred alternative for settling disputes of all kinds, which includes developing the legislative framework for mediation, in addition to spreading community awareness of mediation, raising confidence in it, and building model centers for mediation in foreign courts, and courts in general, together with launching a "Taradhi "Consensual" platform".
