Business & Money | Monday 21 August, 2017 3:00 am |

Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority (Monsha’at) will launch an interactive conference (BIBAN) which will be held at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention center from 17th to 20th September 2017.

According to Dr. Ghassan Ahmed Al Sulaiman, Governor of the General Authority for small and medium enterprises during a press conference today, the BIBAN conference is an important event to create a new culture for the SMEs sector. The event will highlight successes and challenges of SMEs in Saudi Arabia.

“BIBAN conference aims to raise the community awareness of the  importance of innovation and creativity for entrepreneurship as well as to create a nurturing environment and the technical infrastructure to support competitiveness among SMEs,” he added.

Dr. Ghassan Al Sulaiman revealed that the SMEs sector represents 99.2% of the total business in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, “Monsha’at” is working with its partners from all sectors to help SMEs to increase their contribution in the GDP, from 20% to 35%, according to the Saudi vision 2030.

“This sector is a basic source for job opportunities in the country and is also one of the main pillars to diversify the income sources for the national's economy,” he said.

Dr. Al Sulaiman stressed the importance of BIBAN conference as an interactive event that aims to review successful models of SMEs. “The conference has been designed to overcome obstacles such as the weak communication among stakeholders and the low interest of entrepreneurs who are not familiar with the government systems” he said.  

“BIBAN will address these challenges in line with the SMEs owners and entrepreneurs’ needs and aspirations (enrichment, empowerment, education and development). The conference will focus on the available investments opportunities taking into the consideration the local market’s current and future needs,” he added.

Mr. Riyadh Saeed Muawad, Key Accounts VP and Business Development VP of STC (Saudi Telecom Company), said that the growth of SMEs sector is central to achieving the Saudi vision 2030 for the future generations. It is important to motivate and support of SME growth. Therefore, STC, seeks to support the SMEs sector by offering ICT solutions.”

Mr. Mohammad Al Khuraiji, Chief Executive Officer of Al Arabia outdoor advertising, said that such initiatives that target the youth in general and those initiatives that support youth entrepreneurship in specific has wide support by Saudi large companies. He added: “We see great potential in supporting this segment of the society which will also contribute positively to the growth of small and medium enterprise sector in Saudi Arabia. It will also help diversify the economy and achieve one of the pillars of Saudi Vision 2030”. Mr. Al Khuraiji concluded: “We will always support those initiatives that contribute to the socio-economic growth and development of Saudi Arabia in line with the country’s vision 2030 and reflects our position as a leading Saudi company in outdoor advertising.”

The conference reflects a dynamic interactive concept in line of the young entrepreneurs’ aspirations to realize their ideas and dreams. BIBAN conference also opens the doors of a realistic dialogue on the challenges faced by the SMEs sector, including regulations, legislations and the ability to achieve efficient management of the funds.

BIBAN will highlight positive and successful models in the community to learn more from their experience. This step will support young entrepreneurs who have an idea but they do not know where to start, how to understand the regulations and how to get tools to support their operations and administrative and technical solutions. The conference will create a new thought and culture in dealing with entrepreneur’s to support their future and ambitions.

The 12-stations that BIBAN conference has will provide to the visitors rich knowledge and includes the journey station, conference station, awards station, exhibition station, market station, communication station, empowerment station, opportunities station, solutions station, training station, enterprisers station and digital station.

The knowledge will be provided by academics in the business field. This experience will help business owners to start their projects in the future and open horizons of communication between SMEs and large enterprises.

The event will award best supporting bodies of entrepreneurship from various government, fund and education sectors, non-profit organizations as well as the private sector for their role to support SMEs. The event also will name the Best Program for SMEs and Entrepreneurs.