Riyadh: December 14, 2017

His Excellency the Minister of Commerce and Investment and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority “Monsha’at”, Doctor Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, announced today the launch of four initiatives to support SMEs under the Private Sector Stimulus Program, foremost among them an initiative to refund certain government fees already paid, along with an initiative to raise the capital of the Kafalah Program for supporting SMEs, to make it easier for enterprises to obtain the financing they need from financing entities; an indirect financing initiative, to which SAR 1.6 billion has been allocated; and a venture capital fund focused on investing in startups, to which SAR 2.8 billion has been allocated.

Doctor Majid Al-Qasabi explained that the initiative to refund government fees paid by companies was designed by Monsha’at in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the Local Content and Private Sector Development Unit at the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. It aims to ease the financial burdens on small and medium companies in the first years after their establishment, make it easier for them to start their business, and strengthen their chances of continuity, thereby increasing their contribution to GDP and encouraging them to generate new job opportunities for citizens, in line with the SME sector performance indicators in Vision 2030.

A large number of new small and medium companies, spread across more than 11 sectors, are expected to benefit from this initiative, and will be able to recover selected fees over the years from 2018 to 2021. Registration will be open to companies established between 2016 and 2020, and applications to recover these fees will be submitted by registering the company and uploading its requests through the initiative’s online portal, starting from January 1, 2018.

The refundable government fees include, but are not limited to: full refund of trademark registration fees, municipal licenses, commercial registration, Saudi Post, licenses for various commercial activities, and 80% of the financial levy on expatriate workers.