RIYADH: In a move to further boost promising local businesses, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources issued 102 new industrial licenses during July 2023 compared to 73 released in June, according to a report by the National Industrial and Mining Information Center.
Most of the licenses were granted to main industrial activities, led by the food product manufacturing sector with 21 permits, followed by non-metallic minerals activity with 16, non-ferrous metal manufacturing — except machinery and equipment — with 14.
Rubber and plastics products manufacturing came next with nine licenses. Among others, eight permits went to other manufacturing industries.
According to the report, the total number of industrial licenses issued by the ministry from the beginning of this year until the end of July amounted to 659, while the number of existing factories in the Kingdom until the end of the same month reached 11,032, with an investment of SR1.479 trillion ($394.4 billion).
The report indicated that the volume of new investments in July reached SR1.2 billion. It added that small enterprises accounted for 80.39 percent of the new licenses, followed by medium enterprises 18.63 percent and micro-enterprises by 0.98 percent,
The report showed that national factories recorded the largest percentage of the total licenses.
Meanwhile, figures released in July by the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources showed the total number of industrial facilities hit 10,819 by the end of March — up from 10,518 factories at the end of 2022 — with the estimated capital of these factories amounting to over SR1.43 trillion ($381 billion).
The bulletin showed that national factories lead by type of investment, pulling 83.5 percent of all funds, followed by foreign-owned factories with 8.5 percent, then factories with joint ownership by 8 percent.
There are some 725,563 workers in these factories, with Riyadh topping the regions with nearly 268,000 employees, followed by the Eastern Province where 183,193 laborers are working.
Source: Arab News
