The number of factories in the newly introduced plastic industries sector reached 1, 223 in the GCC region by the end of 2007. According to the latest study of The Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting, which is the consulting authority for The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) industrial development since 1976, the total investment in the plastic industry amounted to SR 5 Billion. These factories employed 79,000 male and female workers - a surge from 1990 statistics when there were only 326 factories with 17,500 workers and investment totaled SR932 million.