Saudi forum calls for greater role for women

Women should be given a prominent role in developing the nation, delegates at Jeddah's sixth Economic Forum said.

Most speakers agreed that women should be treated as an integral part of their country's workforce.

Several eminent Saudi women, working in the kingdom and abroad, addressed various sessions of the three-day event, which ended on Monday. Dr Hayat Sindi of Cambridge University delivered the keynote speech.

She underlined the need to check the phenomenon known as the brain drain, which she said had reached an alarming level of 37 per cent in the Middle East and Africa.

She called for scientific and academic centres with international standards to be set up to fulfil the requirements of scholars and professionals in the region.

While referring to the global brain drain, she said about 800,000 professionals had migrated to the United States from various parts of the world.

"About 37 per cent of them were from the Middle East and Africa. About 50 per cent of doctors and 23 per cent of engineers are migrating to other countries, seeking better career opportunities.

"About 40,000 professionals and academics have even migrated from Europe," she said. Dr Sindi attributed the phenomenon to people seeking better career opportunities and wanting to work in specialised fields.

Speaking in a session devoted to the Arab common market, Dr Rasheed Mohammad Rasheed, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Trade, described its concept as a defective one. "All speeches about the topic are simply emotional outbursts, lacking clear vision."