Badea Abu Al-Naja Saudi Gazette MAKKAH — Saudi businessmen have welcomed a new Ministry of Commerce and Industry initiative to tackle tasattur businesses, ventures foreigners run and control in exchange for a fixed fee paid to the registered Saudi owner. The measures, according to commercial experts, will also control expatriates' remittances back home. They said the new measures would reduce the size of bogus businesses and joblessness in the Kingdom. A number of government departments will be included in the initiative, such as the ministries of municipal and rural affairs, social affairs, labor, agriculture, higher education, interior and culture and information and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA). The ministry said it would revise all old commercial ledgers and registrations in the coming six months and introduce amendments that would tackle tasattur. It also said it would seek the help of the private sector to supervise all shops and commercial establishments. Maher Bin Saleh Jamal, chairman of the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Saudi Gazette that the remarkable rise in the annual remittances of the expatriates was a clear evidence of the size of tasattur operations. "Our national economy loses about SR300 billion every year because of tasattur operations," he said. He added the remittances of expatriates by far exceeded their individual monthly salaries and annual income. Jamal said expatriates are controlling the retail trade as well as service and contracting sectors. He said about 60 to 70 percent of workers who were brought in on visas but left to aimlessly roam the streets looking for work were the result of tasattur and bogus establishments. He said: “Many businessmen use their commercial licenses to establish businesses that only exist on paper. “These non-existent establishments do not add any value to our economy.” Jamal did not dismiss the possibility that a number of multinational companies that had entered the Saudi market had contributed to the tasattur ventures. "Many of these companies, which work under Saudi names, only employ nationals from their respective countries.” The chairman said young Saudis should be encouraged to take on jobs in the private sector currently occupied by expatriates and said they should not shy away from doing any work. “Young Saudis should set up their own businesses and the government should help them achieve this,” he said. Jamal said the private sector should be a main partner in tackling tasattur because it is affected the most by such businesses. "There should be practical and applicable solutions to the problem, not just decisions on paper," he said. His deputy, Mohammed Bin Abdul Samad Al-Qurashi, said tasattur did not only harm the national economy but resulted in a large number of expatriate workers taking up jobs at the expense of Saudis. "Tasattur has increased the number of illegal expatriates and has resulted in large amounts of money without legal sources or origins leaving the country," he said.
