Okaz/Saudi Gazette TAIF — Huawei mobile phones company will train about 100 Saudi male and female instructors in three major cities in the repair and maintenance of mobile phones under an agreement signed with the Technical Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC). Under the agreement, the Chinese company will also furnish laboratories and classrooms in five cities with the required training equipment during the coming weeks. The agreement was signed during a meeting between TVTC's governor Ahmed Bin Fahd Al-Fihaid and a number of Huawei officials including the company's CEO for Saudi Arabia Ramadan Ding. The two sides agreed that Huawei will send 10 instructors to China for advance training on maintenance and repair of the mobile phones and their accessories at the company's head office. This is the second initiative launched by the TVTC with the international telecommunication companies to support the corporation's training programs with the assistance of the Human Resources Development Fund (Hadaf). The TVTC has designed four main training programs including the primary maintenance of smart phones, sales, customer service and advance repair. In an effort to provide more jobs to Saudi Arabian citizens, the Kingdom will ban foreign workers from selling and maintaining mobile phones and accessories for them, the Ministry of Labor announced earlier this month. Stores selling mobile communications devices will have to ensure that at least 50 percent of staff doing such work are Saudi citizens in three months' time, the ministry said. Within six months, the required ratio will rise to 100 percent. Some jobs such as human resources managers and security officers have long been reserved for Saudi nationals, but the ministry's announcement suggests the government is now willing to intervene more aggressively in the labor market to get Saudis into work. State funds will be used to support companies facing higher costs because of the new regulations, the ministry said.
