(MENAFN - Arab News) Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, has instructed the formation of a committee to study the volume of the private sector in the Kingdom and its ability to support Saudi inventions and innovations. The committee was proposed earlier by Minister of Education Prince Faisal bin Abdullah.
The directives included the involvement of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the study prior to submitting all details to the crown prince once the study is complete. The Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC) has immediately begun sending formal requests to chambers around the Kingdom to survey the inventions and innovations carried out by Saudis and put them in a list for submission to the competent committee, which will, in turn, submit it in an integrated study to the crown prince.
The study includes the private sector's ability to develop the necessary programs for promoting and developing investment in new industrial projects, aimed at making the new industries a genuine addition to existing ones.
The study also approaches the private sector's ability to improve its performance so as to fully play its investment role, as well as the ability in terms of economic improvement through follow-up, collaboration, and development.
Many Saudi inventions obtained patents in the last few years, but they failed to obtain the financial support that enables them to gain profits.
Jeddah-based inventor Yasser Bahjat thinks the creation of the new committee is a good move that will bring inventors closer to their dream of realizing their inventions. He hoped its establishment would be followed up. Bahjat suggested that a public funding of some of the inventors' ideas would encourage businessmen in the private sector to do the same.
"There is a lack in risk-taking investors in the private sector. Most, if not all, small tech companies in the US, for example, started as an idea and were backed by venture capitalists or investors willing to take the risk, which at the end benefited both sides," said Bahjat.
Rayan Nasser Masudi of the Jeddah-based startup company Ray Technology, another Saudi inventor, said he hoped the new committee would benefit both investors and inventors, and not only the former, given the fact that "the majority of inventors actually lack the business and marketing expertise the majority of business investors have".
