Biban Forum 2017 organized by the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises, continued for the second consecutive day at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center in Riyadh, which received great interest from the Ministry of Commerce and Investment, Municipal and Rural Affairs, Agriculture, Environment and Water, and other government agencies and private sector institutions.

Government's role in enabling the establishment of small enterprises

The role of government in enabling the creation of small businesses

During the first day, His Excellency the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Eng. Abdullatif Al-Sheikh participated in the main session of the forum entitled “The Role of the Government in Enabling the Establishment of Small Enterprises”, reviewing the role of the municipal sector in enabling investment in the Kingdom, noting that the Bipan Forum brings everyone together under the common goal of serving the citizen, resident and visitor in order to achieve the vision of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud - may God protect him - that the Kingdom be a successful and leading model in the world at all levels in line with the objectives of the Kingdom Vision 2030.

He emphasized that the forum is an important step in the development of Saudi Arabia's municipal sector. His Excellency stressed that the municipal sector is considered an enabler of investment in the Kingdom by improving the business environment, indicating that the Ministry has adopted the preparation and implementation of specialized programs aimed at providing municipal services in an easy and facilitated manner in line with the aspirations of all categories of investors, in cooperation, partnership and coordination with all relevant authorities.

Multiple efforts of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs

Multiple efforts of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs

<The Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs pointed out that the efforts made by the Ministry in various fields, which contribute to achieving the objectives of the forum, including facilitating procedures and issuing municipal licenses, where the Ministry unified the activities and requirements for professional licenses according to the global ISIC system approved by the General Authority for Statistics and in coordination with the relevant authorities and published them on the “Baladi” portal for all beneficiaries and entrepreneurs, and the “Baladi” portal was launched as a unified national portal to serve the public and provide all municipal license services, which created for the municipal sector a single window for all secretariats and municipalities to serve the beneficiary, which created a unified window for all municipalities and municipalities to serve the beneficiary.

Instant municipal licenses for (168) municipal activities

<The Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs explained that coordination is underway with the rest of the relevant authorities, adding that the ministry launched the instant professional licenses service (Phase I), where beneficiaries of the municipal licenses service in all regions of the Kingdom can immediately obtain municipal licenses through the Baladi portal for (168) municipal activities automatically without the need to review the secretariats or municipalities, and a comprehensive licenses committee was formed, which includes members from the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, General Presidency for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, General Directorate of Civil Defense and some investors in both sectors

Creative Thinking for Municipal Work

He pointed out that the Ministry adopted the idea of establishing creative thinking centers for municipal work, which aims to activate community energies and ideas, where these centers will work with the philosophy of think tanks to collect creative ideas to find successful solutions to the challenges facing the municipal sector, announcing that the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs will launch (5) centers in the secretariats early next year 2018.