94 years of milestones

Every year, at the beginning of the Libra sign, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia celebrates the anniversary of the declaration of the unification of the country by the founder, Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, may God bless his soul, in accordance with Royal Decree No. 2716 dated September 23, 1932. The Royal Decree consists of a preamble and eight articles that embody the most advanced legislative applications of the principles of Shura, justice and equality that have formed the foundations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since its early ages.

I would like to join you in celebrating this glorious anniversary from a legal and economic perspective in particular. The issuance of this legislative document during the period between World War I and World War II reflects the depth of political and economic stability that coincided with the legislative renaissance that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was experiencing at that time. This would provide solid evidence of the importance of the Saudi investment environment that attracted most of the regional headquarters in the region.

Since ancient times, international commercial ships have been flocking to the ports of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is distinguished by being a link between the three continents. We mention, for example, the arrival of the Jahangir ship in January 1922, loaded with goods and a delegation of pilgrims. This international trade created global practices in the region. In this regard, we mention an advertisement published in 1928 in Umm Al-Qura newspaper, issue 184, in which Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Fadl’s stores in Jeddah, Mumbai and Karachi announced their complete readiness to supply all the orders needed by the trade of these countries. The advertisement stated that Sheikh Al-Fadl’s stores had obtained a number of commercial agencies from Europe.

As for trademarks, they were not absent from the Saudi economic environment, as they were known as distinctive marks. One of the pioneers of this sector was the businessman Bin Zaqr, who owns the oldest registered trademark in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As for financial transactions and the debt market, they were flourishing, and documents transmitted to us by reliable historians prove that one of the famous methods was the use of clearing in financial transactions between merchants and farmers. This flexibility played a major role in the prosperity and stability of the economy, despite the presence of global financial disasters surrounding it from the West to the East.

History has witnessed that the stable Saudi economic environment has produced international economic entities that cross borders and have witnessed the darkest global financial crises and successfully overcome them, making the Saudi economic environment the first choice for anyone who wants to establish a solid investment in the long term, and for this reason.