| Saudi Arabia is spearheading the digital economy revolution in the Middle East, and has collaborated with other regional partners to launch the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) in November.
Founded by the kingdom, along with Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Pakistan, DCO aims to realise a digital future for all by empowering women, youth and entrepreneurs, growing the digital economy, and leapfrogging with innovation.
“We are joining hands together towards a commitment to drive consensus on digital co-operation to make sure that we seize an opportunity for our youth, our women and our entrepreneurs with the ambition to grow our combined digital economy to USD 1 trillion in the next three to five years,” said Abdullah Amer Al-Swaha, Saudi Arabia's minister of communications and information technology.
“Our future prosperity will depend on the digital economy. But it can only reach its full potential if we are able to make governments work together collectively with businesses, and entrepreneurs so they can survive and thrive, expand their depth into current markets and open doors for everyone into new ones."
These efforts are vital to nurture the small and medium enterprises (SME) and start-up culture, which is fast taking root in the kingdom and across the region.
Building global partnerships in the start-up and SME space is a key strategy being employed by Saudi companies to ensure they can share knowledge and expertise through cross-pollination of ideas and practices with entities in other countries.
SNK STAKE
In November, the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation (MiSK Foundation), took a USD 216.5 million stake in Japanese gaming company SNK Corp. listed on the Korean Stock Exchange. MiSK-owned Electronic Gaming Development Company now holds 33.3% of the company’s shares.
MiSK said its investment in SNK “reinforces its continuous commitment to its goals of empowering Saudi men and women through building economic partnerships, within the foundation’s updated strategy to maximise the positive impact on youth empowerment.”
The foundation supports the empowerment of youth in several basic pillars of knowledge, including education and entrepreneurship, culture and arts, science and technology, and digital media. It achieves these goals by designing programmes and initiatives, and building partnerships with leading local and international organisations.
“The MiSK Foundation seeks to continuously develop its programmes to maximise the positive impact it creates on its young beneficiaries, and the decision to invest in SNK supports that strategic direction,” the company said.
INCLUSIVE GROWTH
Saudi Arabia also took the message of global collaboration in the SME sector to the G20 summit, which was held this year under its presidency.
Small businesses must be part of the global multilateral trading system to ensure its success, the G20, a group of the world’s largest economies, said in its final communique at the conclusion of the summit on 22 November.
“We recognise the need to increase the sustainability and resilience of national, regional, and global supply chains that foster the sustainable integration of developing and least developed countries into the trading system, and share the objective of promoting inclusive economic growth including through increased participation of micro-, small-, medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in international trade and investment,” the G20 leaders said in a joint statement. “We note that structural problems in some sectors, such as excess capacities, can cause a negative impact.”
Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s key theme for the G20 summit was Enhance Access to Opportunities for All, which can be leveraged to support the immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic and move towards a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive recovery, with special emphasis on the private sector.
The G20 also endorsed the High-level Policy Guidelines on Digital Financial Inclusion for Youth, Women, and SMEs prepared by the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI).
“It is critical to ensure that viable SMEs around the world – specifically those led by difficult-to-reach and/or underserved segments, including women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs, rural entrepreneurs, forcibly displaced persons, and other vulnerable groups – have access to responsible financial services,” GFPI said in a report, published in October.
The holistic approach to SME development by Saudi Arabia and its key trading partners will help create a strong environment for young and budding entrepreneurs to venture out and take the risk of setting up their own business.
The Saudi government entities’ focus on local content and nurturing domestic business in procurement is also an equally important tool to boost SME participation in the kingdom’s burgeoning non-oil economy. |
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