The Kingdom's future depends on creating an environment for entrepreneurial activity to flourish, Mohamed Al-Mady, Sabic Vice Chairman and CEO, said in a keynote address on the opening day of the two-day Saudi Downstream Forum in Jubail Tuesday. Noting that Sabic is engaged and is pursuing an aggressive strategy toward this end, Al-Mady said "cultivating an innovation-driven economy is the ultimate economic development goal for our country. Investing to ensure success is critical - investments like the joint venture between the government and Sabic, the Industrial Investment Company, which is designed to attract anchor industry participation." He said SABIC has global reach, experienced market access, downstream production technology and mature research development capabilities to offer small entrepreneurs the ability to compete successfully on a domestic and international scale. "One of the more important areas investors review is in the context of technology sophistication and the ability to adapt to new technology. This is perhaps the single most important area of contribution for companies like Sabic," he added. Speaking about how Sabic powers the ambitions of its customers, he said the company's new product introductions over the next several years will open new industry opportunities as it continues to work on joint developments to improve its customers' products and performance. "We believe that it is important for us to participate in an ongoing campaign of proactive outreach; to communicate the significance of Sabic's product line and where we believe opportunities exist for downstream engagement, to play a role in the plastic industries output, which consumes 27 percent of polymers sales in Saudi Arabia. The remaining percentage is exported to the different world markets," he said.
