Adnan Mandura, secretary-general of Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), said the chamber has been successful in realizing the dream of Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal to convert Jeddah into the number one city for holding forums and conferences in the Middle East region as a whole.

In an exclusive interview with Arab News reporter Nadim Al-Hamid, he outlined JCCI’s priorities in creating thousands of job opportunities for jobless Saudi youths as well as in promoting small enterprises and productive families. Mandura said the chamber has made major headway in easing bureaucratic bottlenecks through introducing e-service and other administrative reforms.

JCCI is lending a helping hand to businessmen and investors in carrying out their business transactions as well as in implementing their projects. Could you spell out the major achievements of the chamber in the recent past?

JCCI was successful in fulfilling most of its missions and that impacted positively on the national economy, private sector and the local society. As a result of this, JCCI won accolades from several government agencies, and businessmen in addition to local, regional and international organizations.

The chamber is always keen to extend highly advanced and excellent services, and as such it worked on improving quality of service and efficiency of performance keeping pace with the massive growth requirements of the Kingdom’s economy. JCCI’s mission of serving the interests of the business community and the private sector has later been expanded to support the government as a strategic partner in realizing its social and economic development goals as well as in developing infrastructure projects, supporting investment projects, in addition to promoting social and charity programs.

The chamber organized a number of forums and activities this year, and these included the 13th edition of the Jeddah Economic Forum, social responsibility forum, productive family forum, fifth industrial forum and Jeddah Summer Festival 33. It also participated in highlighting the potential of Jeddah through the Jeddah projects exhibition. We worked hard to realize the dream of Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal to make Jeddah the city of forums and conferences in the Middle East region.

What about your vision and strategy with regard to the interaction with Jeddah’s private sector?

The main mission of JCCI is to serve the interests of the private sector. We strive to realize this through 13 strategic goals, set out by the 20th session of JCCI board.

Accordingly, we are working hard to realize the national strategy for Saudization and creating more jobs. We are successful in creating thousands of job opportunities through JCCI’s Human Resources Development Center, and job generating programs.

We are making efforts to boost the concept of social responsibility among the private sector companies through organizing wide variety of programs and activities. JCCI extends support to small enterprises and newly established businesses, especially in creating jobs for Saudis, as well as to settle commercial disputes in a cordial way.

Apart from this, the chamber also plays a vital role in empowering Saudi women and enables them to have active participation in the national development. There are a total of 65 sub committees under JCCI that are engaged in solving problems and removing bureaucratic bottlenecks concerning private business organizations.

What about the role of JCCI in supporting projects undertaken by the small and medium enterprises (SMEs)?

JCCI believes SMEs are the backbone of the Kingdom’s economy. SMEs represent nearly 90 percent of those registered with the chamber. Through the JCCI center for developing small and new businesses, we extend them logistic support to remove hurdles and score success. During the first half of this year, the chamber conducted 18 programs to serve young men and women, of which the last one was the seminar on SMEs in which top executives of several leading Saudi banks attended.

Please comment about the success of the recently concluded Jeddah Summer Festival 33. What about your proposals and ideas for further improving the festival next year?

Jeddah Ghair 33 has achieved a great success. There were 150 festival programs and activities held at 70 fun cities and 360 commercial centers and malls. The festival drew 2 million tourists and visitors from within the Kingdom and abroad. Prizes and gifts valued at over SR 3 million were distributed. More than 50 government and private agencies and organizations actively participated in making the 37-day event a resounding success.

We managed to score this excellent result with the patronage of Prince Khaled and follow up of Jeddah Gov. Prince Mishal bin Majed, who is also chairman of the Supreme Organizing Committee of the festival. We are always exerting efforts not to repeat past mistakes and further improve the festival every year. Of course, we do have new plans and programs for next year’s festival.

Many people complain about the routine delay to get things done at JCCI. What is your answer?

I think this view is not a correct one. We have shaken the routine delay with a deadly strike. Now, any company or organization can complete procedures electronically and there is no need to visit the chamber. Apart from this, the facility for the attestation of documents is not restricted to the chamber headquarters or its major branches in other cities only. There are over 16 branches that offer services of attestation services and renewal of registration and they are operating at commercial centers and government agencies. The attestation wing is working round the clock and even during festival holidays. All these contributed substantially in making procedures easier and simpler.

What about complaints that JCCI is giving too much significance to prominent businessmen and that it is ignoring the new entrepreneurs?

This is not true. We are doing everything to support and promote SMEs. Most of our programs and activities aimed at serving this purpose. The latest example for this is our plan to hold an exhibition for 300 young businessmen and women, slated for October this year. It is expected that more than 20,000 people will visit the fair, which would be a great driving force for young Saudi entrepreneurs in crystallizing their dreams through adopting professional ways. We have presented several e-solutions free of cost to SMEs.

JCCI recently launched an e-attestation service for its customers in the excellent grade. What is your assessment of the scheme? Why is this scheme not applicable to other grades?

The e-attestation service is a great success. It helps the clients to get attested their documents from their offices whether they are in the Kingdom or outside without coming personally to the chamber headquarters. This helps them to save their time and energy. They can attest the documents even after ending official duty hours.

Moreover, it helps the clients to protect their documents and information from being forged thanks to top safety standards. We have also plans to make available of this service to members in all grades. This can be achieved through getting access to the JCCI website (www.jcea.org.sa).

There are complaints that fees charged by the chamber for attestation and renewal of membership are high. Is there any plan to reduce them in future?

JCCI has nothing to do with fixing fee rates and renewing membership. All these come under the jurisdiction of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. All the chambers are implementing the council’s decisions in this regard.

Of course, this fee represents a major source of the chambers’ revenues. We are also earning money through extending services for holding conferences, forums, exhibitions and bringing out guides. I don’t think there is any move on the part of the council to reduce or increase membership fees. But of course, there would be an increase in the number of new members.

JCCI became the first Saudi chamber to establish a charity fund with a capital of SR 100 million. Is there any new move in this respect?

We are in the process of completing the preparations to activate the fund in order to extend support to small enterprises and productive families in Makkah and Jeddah. This emanates from the social responsibility that was made compulsory by Islam.

JCCI is receiving several foreign delegations as part of boosting bilateral relations. Was there any new agreements signed by JCCI in the recent past?

The chamber board has drawn up some regulations with regard to entertaining foreign delegations. According to these regulations, we are not receiving any delegations simply to exchange cordial talks and take group photos. We are keen to translate such meetings to clinch concrete outcome through undertaking initiatives and concluding deals.

What are the major hurdles faced by businessmen, especially small investors, and what are the solutions?

In my capacity as the present JCCI secretary general and former director general of 65 sub committees under the chamber, I can say that these sub committees are instrumental in solving most of the problems facing this sector. They presented thousands of recommendations and solutions over the past years. Nearly 70 percent of our efforts are devoted to identify these problems and solve them.

What are the major achievements of JCCI’s social responsibility department?
The department is JCCI’s arm to implement the social responsibility programs of private companies.

The last achievement of the department was holding the second Saudi Social Responsibility Forum in May this year.

The chamber is implementing programs to support productive families, people with special needs, in addition to instituting a social responsibility prize for the company providing outstanding services in this field.