Within Tasheel program in Asharqia Chamber yesterday:
Saline Water Conversion Corporation: 62 investment opportunities in the field of spare parts and chemicals.
Quality and speed of delivery are the most important requirements of the organization to support local content.
Asharqia Chamber organized a meeting with the Saline Water Conversion Corporation on Thursday, 27 December 2018 at its headquarter.
The meeting was attended by the Chairman of the Chamber, Abdul Hakim bin Hamad Al-Ammar Al-Khalidi, and directed by the board member Ibrahim bin Mohammed Al-Sheikh, members of the Council Badr bin Mohammed Abdul Karim and Bandar bin Rafi al-Jabri, and the Secretary General of the Chamber Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al Wabel.
Saline Water Conversion Corporation emphasized its keenness to support local content, as it has set up a specialized training center and an innovation center, and cooperated with all national universities, and has maintained contact with a number of foreign universities as well.
It stressed that it has achieved achievements at this level, including 90 thousand Saudi employees, and the production of 5 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day, and it has entered the Guinness Book of Records as one of the world's largest producers of sweet water.
During the meeting, the assistant governor of the Corporation for supporting business and support services, Engineer Mansour bin Abdullah Al-Zunaidi, said that the Corporation through Tasheel program aimed at achieving direct communication between private institutions and representatives of strategic sectors.
In this meeting, it seeks to introduce investment opportunities and expand its network of investment relations with local manufacturers and suppliers, introducing the registration mechanism and clarifying the steps required to mobilize applications, which enable those wishing to complete the qualification process, which is the main gate for their entry into the Foundation's projects, as these steps allow for the governance of procedures and controls governing the handling of service providers and to achieve the aspirations of the Corporation, and enables them to raise the quality and reliability in the management of internal operations, and the implementation of projects professionally and efficiently.
Al-Zanidi called all investors to explore the investment opportunities offered by the Corporation and to take advantage of the incentive measures that "make us and our partners move towards further growth and development."
Al-Zanidi stressed that the Corporation has always been keen to involve Asharqia Chamber in its initiatives and development programs in order to link these projects and initiatives with the leadership orientations which the Corporation pays its full attention to, particularly in relation to capacity-building of local content, as one of the most important potentials of economic development in the field of desalination of salt water that are in line with the vision and mission of the Corporation and keep pace with the Vision of the Kingdom 2030.
He said that today, through this participation, the opportunity is right for the Corporation to continue to present its investment opportunities through providing incentives to invest, which are directly linked with its services in the fields of desalinated water production, desalinated water transportation, power generation, provision of equipment, chemicals and others.
He added, "We in the Corporation seek to meet the rapid growth on the demand for desalinated water due to population growth and urban expansion by building new plants, maintaining and reconstructing existing plants, and continuing to lead in the production of desalinated water, which has achieved an unprecedented record locally and globally in the production of 5 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day, as we deliver 70% of the drinking water in the Kingdom."
He stressed, "This opens the door to the business sectors, and the small and medium enterprises sector in particular, to invest in the opportunities offered in future pipelines, electrical and mechanical spare parts, construction of new projects under construction, future desalination plants, future transportation lines, and other precious opportunities."
He stressed the keenness of the Corporation to attract and access national institutions.
Al-Zunaidi said that the Corporation seeks to reduce the cost while maintaining the access of the product to the beneficiary with high efficiency to be done through the national institutions and investors, which we deal with as complementary to us in this way as we are serious about settling this industry, and then exporting it abroad.
He added, "we have in this area a global research center and pioneer and an advanced training center. We got a good number of patents that we hope will be produced by local investors."
Regarding the local content, he said, "We have achieved 43% of the local content and we hope to reach 60% by 2025. But the Saudization issue is still going on in the Corporation. We have 90,000 Saudi employees, most of the pipes used for transporting water are locally produced, and 35% of the chemicals we use are produced by national institutions. However, we hope that all the services we week to be fully nationalized.".
He stressed the keenness of the Corporation to acquire technology, and cooperate with all national universities under certain agreements, and also continues with international universities.
The member of the Board of Directors of Asharqia Chamber, Ibrahim bin Mohammed Al-Sheikh, said that the meeting with the « Saline Water Conversion Corporation », which comes within the activities of «Tasheel», one of the initiatives of Asharqia Chamber to Support Businesses, which aims at activating the investment movement in the Region by providing the business sector with a direct view of the investment opportunities that are offered by the major strategic sectors in the Kingdom whether for procurement, manufacturing or services.
Al-Sheikh said that in light of the importance of coordination and achieving direct communication between the two parties of national investment, (Major companies on the one hand and the local investors on the other), and its significant role in stimulating the movement of production and operation, Asharqia Chamber launched its Tasheel program in mid-April 2017 in order to be in line with the Vision of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2030, in addition to its diverse contribution to serving the business sector in the Eastern Region by offering the products of major strategic companies, and marketing their investment opportunities that are available to local manufacturers and suppliers.
The meeting with « Saline Water Conversion Corporation » deals with the desalination of sea water, the production of electric power and the delivery of desalinated water produced for different regions of the Kingdom and the availability of several investment opportunities, in addition to completing the mission of Tasheel program at its fourth session towards enhancing the opportunities of the local component in the strategic projects by facilitating contracting procedures and offering procurement and supply opportunities between the two parties to the national investment.
Al-Sheikh stressed that the Chamber through launching this session of the program «Tasheel» is keen to meet the aspirations of the business sector in the Eastern Region by providing innovative services and creating new tools that will stimulate economic activity in the region and ensuring sustainable development and growth through optimal investment of available resources.
For his part, the project management specialist at the Corporation, Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al-Arifi, talked about the existing and future projects of the Corporation.
He said that the Corporation is doing three services desalination, electricity production, and transferring the desalinated water to the beneficiary's tanks (National Water Company).
He pointed out that the Corporation produces 5 million cubic meters per day, produces 7 thousand and 500 megawatts of electricity through pipelines of 7,000 km, 236 reservoirs, 35 pumping stations.
Therefore, it entered the Guinness Book of Records and ranked second in the world and has won numerous world-class awards.
Al-Arifi reviewed a number of existing projects and projects under implementation and projects that the Corporation intends to implement in all regions of the Kingdom.
He stressed that these projects are carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Water, Agriculture and the Environment, where it is expected that other projects will appear in the coming years because of the demand for water in the continuous increase.
The local content manager, Engineer Abdul Hakim bin Amer bin Saif, talked about investment opportunities in spare parts, contracts and chemicals.
He said that the Corporation has about 62 investment opportunities in the field of spare parts and chemicals based on a study by the Corporation to identify the materials and parts required by the work of the institution, as it has been posted on the Corporation's website and is available to local investors in detail.
He stressed that the Corporation has established a special management of local content, and seeks to be all national purchases, and a national producer, or from a national supplier.
It also established an innovation center in Jubail to showcase investment opportunities in the Corporation's projects.
The center is in contact with two international universities, in which we seek to attract local innovators and support them materially by giving them 50% of the value of the project and looking for an investor to implement innovation.
The Director of Rehabilitation Department, Engineer Ali Bin Omar Al-Shuqair, talked about the mechanism of registration and qualification of suppliers.
He confirmed that the 3 requirements for qualifying are financial requirements, technical (previous experiences, certificates and the like), and other requirements depending on the type of project.
He pointed out that the Corporation always pays attention to quality, time and price.
The Director General of Supply, Engineer Sulaiman Altwaijri, stressed the interest of the Corporation in the local component.
The national product has priority over others, depending on the government procurement system, even if its price is 10 percent higher.
He said, "We cooperate with everyone to qualify any product offered to us by local investors and governs in this regard (quality, price and time), and if not available, we import."
He stressed that the qualification of any investor for any project with this Corporation is able to qualify for another project; "We look to the investor as an investor regardless of whether he is a large or small institution."
It is noteworthy that Tasheel program has held several versions that were hosted by Asharqia Chamber with Saudi Aramco companies, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and Saudi Electricity Company.
The meeting witnessed two presentations: the first is on Tasheel program that is adopted by Asharqia Chamber in order to deepen the dialogue with major companies to support the local component and create investment opportunities for national companies, especially small and medium enterprises.
The second is a presentation about the Saline Water Conversion Corporation.
At the end of the meeting, Al-Sheikh honored the assistant governor Al-Zuneidi.
