Eng. Saud bin Rashid Alaskar, Deputy Governor of SASO for Conformity and Quality, reviewed the topics of Products' Safety Program, which is one of the initiatives of the Ministry of Commerce and Investment  within the National Transformation Program. SASO supervises the implementation of this program in cooperation with the concerned bodies. 

      Eng. Alaskar explained that the challenges facing the Kingdom and the national economy are; ensuring the safety of products offered in the market, enhancing consumer confidence, and ensuring fair trade practices, in addition to raising the level of competitiveness and quality of goods, and creating incentives to support the efficiency of goods and products in the market. Furthermore, he pointed out that the reasons behind the low consumer confidence in products is due to the diversity of sources from which the Saudi market receives products, as well as the great focus on border control, and the absence of clear plans and strategies for control efforts.

During his speech, Eng. Alaskar pointed that international experiences in the field of product safety are concerned with the existence of a legislative infrastructure, the importance of the efficiency and quality of the infrastructure and its conformity with standards, regulations and assessment bodies working in the economic system, in addition to the promotion of this aspect actively and in a clear way for national associations.

      Deputy Governor of SASO noted that concerned bodies have made great efforts to review international experiences and practices in the field of products' safety insurance before developing the program. They found that the European experience is the most suitable for Saudi Arabia due to the Kingdom's regional connection with GCC countries. Moreover, he noted that the European experience is characterized by the availability of balanced procedures before the entry of goods to and from borders, along with a strict system of penalties, unified standard specifications and technical regulations, as well as the classification of products according to risk and the availability of civil organizations to enhance consumer awareness.

      Eng. Saud Alaskar assured that all industrial products fall under the Products' safety program. All concerned bodies participate in this program and SASO cooperates with these bodies to issue and develop systems that obligate technical regulations, including the launch of Products' safety program, the quality and standards' system and  the update of the commercial fraud system. The program also includes the launch of a new methodology for the issuance of technical regulations to clarify all the requirements and the method of implementation, in addition to the launch of the conformity assessment system, the provision of precise mechanisms  to measure the impact of these regulations on the market by building conformity indicators in the market.

      Deputy Governor of SASO expressed his hope that the Products' Safety Program will raise the levels of confidence and satisfaction of consumers, and lead the Saudi market to higher levels of quality and production efficiency, which enhances the competitive position of the national economy.​