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     His Excellency the Governor of SASO, Dr. Saad bin Othman Al-Kasabi, has inaugurated Services Standards Department in the fr​amework of SASO's efforts to develop the work and to enhance the role of standards in consumer service and national economy.

     On the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, His Excellency said that the standards of services are one of the most important global trends aiming to raise the level of quality and efficiency performance when providing various services, whether services targeting customers and consumers such as health, education and transportation or aiming to support and enable industry such as standards of maintenance services, services of consulting offices, services of institutional practices such as social responsibility, voluntary work, etc.  

     Eng. Abdullah bin Awadh Al Qahtani, SASO's Deputy Governor for Standards and Laboratories, said that SASO relies heavily on the standards of services in raising the quality of services provided by many vital sectors. He pointed out that there have been efforts exerted by the concerned officials at SASO during the last period to set  the strategic plan for services standards in line with the parameters of the vision 2030, and with the programs and initiatives of the National Transformation 2020.

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     For his part, Dr. Ahmed bin Bader Babader, Director of Services Standards Department at SASO, reviewed SASO's keenness to keep abreast of the global trends in the field of services standards. He pointed out that the specialized technical teams are acquainted with the international experiences in this field, to start where other global standardization authorities have reached. He clarified that the attention to services standards comes from the fact that the services, currently in the Kingdom, are between 30 and 35% of the domestic product, while services in the United States of America represent 80% of the domestic product. In addition, Dr. Babader stressed that SASO has made continuous efforts during the last period to come up with a comprehensive and practical strategy, including participation in several symposiums and conferences, as well as introducing 10 working papers. Therefore, that was to identify the standards of services and their importance in many areas such as Hajj and Umrah services, logistics, industrial security services and sustainability services, etc. Furthermore, SASO organized 3 workshops for government and private sectors, participated  in many workshops' activities of implementing the initiatives of Vision 2030, and reviewed the role of services standards in this regard. Therefore, that resulted in the completion of adopting a number of standards for services such as the Saudi standard of anti-corruption systems, the Saudi standard of occasions and events management systems, the Saudi standard of environmental impact assessment for factories and companies, the Saudi standard of project management systems, and the Saudi standard of the guidelines for dealing with complaints in companies and institutions. In addition, SASO is also working with its partners in the government and private sectors to set a number of services standards which will be adopted soon. These are about the following areas: voluntary work management systems in institutions and organizations, the guide of social responsibility, management systems of consulting offices services in environmental fields, etc.