Saudi launches new measures to support industrial and mining sectors

Saudi Arabia has announced a new relief package of 27 measures to ease the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the private industrial and mining sectors.

Following a royal decree, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources announced incentives which include deferring and restructuring loan payments, developing new products to support working capital, exempting, reducing or postponing payment of fees due to the ministry or its ecosystem, extending the expiry period of industrial licences and time limits for constructing and starting new plants, deferring
previous claims of “reserved capacity” fees due, automatically renewing industrial licences, labour support documents, customs exemption and chemical clearance documents, reported Saudi Press Agency.

Industrial investors can benefit from incentives like the extension of the period for completing the requirements of issuing and renewing licences, cancelling of service suspensions, suspending payments of financial consideration and fee, amending conditional allocation notices, extending investment agreements and deferring their cancellation procedures.

The mining industry meanwhile stands to benefit from measures such as deferring the implementation of mining licences work programmes, extending the period for completion of requirements for issuing and renewing licences, extending the financial claim period for holders of small mines licences, raw materials mines’ licences, mining licences for payment of financial dues, extending the period of export permits, and extending the validity period of all valid mining licences.

Read: Saudi reveals new measures to support the private sector due to Covid-19 impact

Also, a 30 per cent discount will be offered on electricity bills and businesses will be required to settle only 50 per cent of the bill, with the option of payment deferrals.

The statement said that SAR50bn has been allocated “to facilitate the settlements of the private sector dues” and outlined other relief measures that the country had been made available to the private sector including reduced interest rate loans and payment deferrals for this year.

The government has already announced other incentives for the private sector such as deferring the submission and payment of tax declarations, suspending imposition of fines and services stopping procedures, procedures for voluntary disclosure of any undisclosed tax obligations and the exemption from fines resulting from that disclosure for all taxpayers, extending expiry of resident IDs and deferring the payment of commercial records fees.

Saudi Arabia has issued a ministerial decision allowing private sector companies to cut salaries by up to 40 per cent, according to media reports, citing daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

Read: Saudi Arabia to cut private sector salaries by 40%

The directive also allows the possible termination of contracts in view of the economic challenges in the aftermath of the Covid-19 spread.