Saudi Arabia: One Million Jobs Bonanza

Asharqia Chamber’s nationalization strategy aims to create one million jobs and contribute SR 105 billion to the gross domestic product in the first phase, said Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, chairman of the chamber yesterday.

“The benefits of nationalization will be wide-ranging as it will contribute to realizing the objectives of economic diversification and creating more jobs,” he said.

Al-Rashid said the massive development projects and huge purchases of leading companies, such as Saudi Aramco and SABIC would create more job opportunities for young Saudi men and women.

He estimated the current spending of strategic and government sectors at SR 300 billion, but pointed out that its local content reached only 20 percent or SR 60 billion.

“At the same time, Saudi Arabia can increase local content to 55 percent or SR 165 billion, thus adding SR 105 billion to the GDP. It will also create about one million new jobs,” Al-Rashid said.

He described Asharqia’s nationalization strategy as an unprecedented project having tremendous impact on the national economy. “The main objective of this strategy is to nationalize services relating to the industrial sector and make optimum use of the advantages offered by petroleum and gas and other strategic sectors,” he said.