His Excellency, the Governor of SASO, Dr. Saad bin Othman Al-Kasabi said: "SASO works to consolidate the principle of integration with its various partners in the public and private sectors in order to reach an effective national system of quality infrastructure. He stressed that success in supporting national industries and enhancing the competitiveness of the Saudi product requires combined efforts between legislative, technical and control bodies, in addition to traders, importers, manufacturers, and private sector partners." This was during a speech at the opening of the Saudi Industrialists and Exporters' Forum, which was held on Thursday at the headquarters of SASO in Riyadh, in cooperation with the Council of Saudi Chambers, and in the presence of a group of interested people and specialists in empowering national industry.

     The Governor explained that SASO is keen to activate the role of private laboratories, and is constantly developing accreditation procedures for them, in line with Vision 2030, which motivates and supports the national industry. This represents a backstopping support of the private laboratories' infrastructure in the Kingdom, which develops the activity of private laboratories and encourages investment in them.

     Dr. Al-Kasabi pointed out that the Kingdom supports local industries and that SASO believes in the importance of enabling the Saudi product in the markets locally and internationally, noting that this empowerment begins by consolidating  national transformation to give the Saudi product preference in the market. Moreover, he assured that SASO works hard to support this transformation in several ways, including; encouraging national establishments to obtain the Quality Mark and get international approval to allow them to compete at a higher level with imported products, , in addition to leading the formed team to discuss the components of protection of national industries and products from unfair competition, which aims to discuss ways to support national industries affected by unfair competition and to develop technical, regulatory, administrative and legal measures to ensure their protection. This will lead to the development and diversification of the economy, which is one of the objectives of Vision 2030. Moreover, SASO is a member in the National Industries and Logistics Development Program, along with other Vision programs such as the National Entrepreneurship Program. 

     For his part, Eng. Abdullah bin Awad Al-Qahtani, Deputy Governor for Standards and Laboratories, reviewed the work of the Protection Committee for National Industries from Unfair Competition and stressed that SASO has formed a comprehensive national system (legislative - technical - control) to protect national industries from unfair competition, including concerned parties from public and private sectors. Three working groups were formed to select the most important national industries to replace their imports counterparts in the local markets. Furthermore, he clarified that four national industries were targeted as a first stage according to a matrix including all possible technical and organizational protection measures.

     The Saudi Industrialists and Exporters' Forum resumed with a working paper on the Saudi Product Safety Program, which is being implemented by SASO as part of the National Transformation 2020 initiatives. Eng. Saud bin Rashid Al-Askar, Deputy Governor for Quality and Conformity said that SASO supervises the development and improvement of the national quality infrastructure system, which is the most important fundamental enabler of the national economy through supporting trade facilitation, increasing competitiveness of the industry and enhancing the protection and safety of the consumer.

     The Forum concluded with an open discussion in which the Governor of SASO, Dr. Saad Al-Kasabi and his deputies Eng. Saud Al-Askar and Eng. Abdullah Al-Qahtani, in addition to the Chairman of the National Industrial Committee in the Council of Saudi Chambers Eng. Osama bin Abdulaziz Al-Zamil participated. The session witnessed a mutual discussion between specialists and people interested in enabling the national industry, to unite efforts and visions to achieve the national interest of all parties.