The Saudi ministries of commerce and municipalities affairs are planning to enforce a new law as part of the framework of the ‘Saudization policy’. According to Al-Watan newspaper, this law prevents local grocery stores that cover an area of less than 400 meters, from operating unless they replace all their expatriate workers by Saudi labor and place a Saudi in the position of direct supervisor.
If this law is in fact carried out, nearly 18,000 small groceries will be forced to shut down. Moreover, the new procedure is likely to harm the economic situation of a large number of medium-income families that rely on these small groceries as their main source of income. Once these groceries are shut down, the local trade sector will lose up to 6.4 billion Saudi riyals, which are exchanged by the 18,000 small groceries. — (Albawaba-MEBG)
