The Minister of Commerce and Investment, Dr. Majid Al-Qasabi, called for solutions to eliminate the need for representatives of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and the General Directorate of Traffic to sign drilling permits, in order to streamline procedures—such as setting a time limit of no more than 48 hours for signing on the drilling permit, with failure to sign the permit within the specified period constituting approval of the permit.

This came in a letter sent by the Minister of Commerce and Investment to His Excellency the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs—a copy of which was received by «Amlak»—calling on him to approve the elimination of the requirement for «municipal certificate» as a requirement for obtaining a meter and accessing electricity service. This is intended to streamline procedures and implement the initiative to reduce the time it takes to connect subscribers to the electricity grid by activating coordination offices to issue drilling permits and connect beneficiaries to the electricity grid within two days, and calling for the General Directorate of Traffic to be added to the list of agencies authorized to issue excavation permits electronically.

These measures and requests are intended to facilitate and streamline procedures and improve the Kingdom’s ranking in the «Access to Electricity» indicator, —one of the 10 key areas addressed by the committee in the World Bank Group’s Doing Business Report—to facilitate cross-border trade, ease the process of starting a business, protect minority shareholders, enforcing contracts, registering property, accessing credit, resolving insolvency, obtaining construction permits, and accessing electricity.