The Growth of Women Entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia: 2023

Saudi Arabia’s Position On Women's Empowerment

As Saudi Arabia embarks on unfolding its Vision 2030 – the core part of which focuses on women empowerment initiatives and policies – into a reality, women in the Kingdom are more than ever seizing every opportunity to issue business licenses to run their own shops and businesses, tech firms, and start-ups, leading to a surge in female entrepreneurs. The winds of modernity have started sweeping through Saudi Arabia and today, Saudi Arabia believes in the importance of investing in Saudi women’s capabilities and enabling them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of our society and economy. Women in Saudi Arabia are increasingly seen as active citizens making major contributions to their community and state's political, economic, and social well-being. 

One of the cores of Saudi Vision 2030 is is to create one million jobs for women in Saudi Arabia. That is why the Kingdom has been undergoing a series of reforms geared towards creating richer economic opportunities for women, allowing them easier access to the job market, and giving them a major role to play in the future development of the country’s economy. Saudi women now comprise 37% of the workforce in the kingdom.

What are the reforms that have taken place in Saudi Arabia to foster women's entrepreneurship?

The Kingdom established reforms dedicated to the promotion of women’s engagement in economic development with wide-ranging institutional measures which have succeeded in changing cultural norms about women in business, and the Kingdom has yielded significant results, some of them are as follows:

• Saudi Arabia encouraged women’s entrepreneurship by prohibiting gender-based discrimination in accessing financial services.
• Saudi Women are no longer restricted to drive around the Kingdom and have taken key measures to provide driving licenses for women.
• A Qiyadyat program (Female Leadership Program) was established by the Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Misk Foundation in order to discover young female leaders, develop their leadership skills, and equip them with the best global practices in this field, in order to ensure better future for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi established business centers for women, within a developed work environment facilitating procedures and saving time for businesswomen.
• Women can start a business easily after eliminating the requirement for guardian approval, and equality in procedures between men and women.
• Women can open business registrations, request registration of trademarks, reserve business names, practice freelancing, and register business agencies.
• Saudi’s ICT sector launched Women Empowerment Program in order to raise awareness about the opportunities available to women in the ICT sector, train and qualify women in digital and future skills and enable women entrepreneurs in the ICT sector to innovate and launch their projects by providing training, business accelerators and incubators, and facilitating access to markets, financing, technologies, attractive legislation, qualified digital talent and entrepreneurial societies. The number of Saudi women in the tech sector is rising exponentially, surpassing women in Europe and Silicon Valley. While creating more tech jobs is essential to absorb these talents, Saudi women are creating their own tech startups. 
• Mohammed bin Salman Foundation - MISK 2030 Leadership Development program was launched to develop a set of unique competencies designed to drive change in the Kingdom, and excel as leaders to play a transformational role in realizing Vision 2030.
• Saudi women are given the opportunity to take up more high-profile diplomatic positions as an extension of the empowerment of Saudi women and confidence in their capabilities. For instance, Saudi Arabian lawyer Jood Al Harthi is the first woman to be appointed as political affairs officer at the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the UN in New York.
• Qurrah Program has been established to support childcare for working Women with the intent to improve and develop the environment and facilities of the children’s hospitality sector while simultaneously supporting the expansion of working Saudi women in the private sector.
• Wusool Program has been established which is a transportation support program enabling women to work, raise their participation in the labor market, and support their job stability, through the financial support provided by “Hadaf” and in cooperation with vehicle routing applications licensed by the Public Transport Authority to provide transportation service of high quality and at an appropriate cost.
• The “Women Spark” initiative has assisted countless young Saudi women in acquiring the skills they need to succeed in the IT industry. Women Spark provides technical skills, soft skills and business skills. In the first three years, in partnership with Microsoft, the initiative educated more than 37,000 Saudi women. With such initiatives emerging, women have a higher potential to succeed faster.

What are the impacts of the reforms that Saudi Arabia implemented for fostering Female Entrepreneurship?

An increasing number of women in Saudi Arabia have begun to achieve tremendous success in the entrepreneurial field, tackling big businesses and male-dominated industries to make their unique mark on the economy. These bold reforms are already benefiting women from the changes and will continue to reap the benefits for generations to come. 

• Saudi Arabia issued 139,754 new commercial licenses to women in 2021, according to the Kingdom’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, a figure that marked one of the largest growth rates globally. This represented a 112% increase in commercial registrations issued for women entrepreneurs compared to 2015.
• In Saudi Arabia, women’s participation rate in the IT sector rose from 11 percent in 2017 to 24 percent in 2021, higher than Silicon Valley by 8%.
• After a recent surge in spending on women’s training, Saudi women currently make up 40% of digital entrepreneurs. This increase shows an enormous level of growth in Saudi Arabia.
• Official figures show 45% of SMEs in the Kingdom are now led by Saudi women. From all corners of the Kingdom, women are becoming the driving force behind Saudi Arabia’s growing SME sector.

The recent reforms are proof of the Kingdom’s pivotal role in empowering women as female-friendly business opportunities are enabled and several female entrepreneurs have shown that they are both willing and able to step out of the box to find creative jobs that ignite their passions and challenge them. 

How can INNOVISION help entrepreneurs do business in the Kingdom?

Vision 2030 is introducing women to new levels of leadership and economic empowerment. In alignment with the exciting initiatives to empower women in business across Saudi Arabia, INNOVISION supports entrepreneurs from all around the world, by facilitating a quick market introduction and allowing access to gain relevant insights about Saudi Arabia’s investment environment & opportunities and helping decide whether or not Saudi Arabia is an interesting market to scale to and how this could impact the firms’ planned expansion trajectory.

INNOVISION helps international companies looking to do business in Saudia Arabia to create, strengthen and expand the entrepreneurship network in Saudi Arabia that encourages and facilitates the transfer of skills and sharing of resources between members.

In addition, INNOVISION assists international companies to ensure that they have enough time to bridge the information gap and gain the confidence they need to fully scale their operation in  Saudi without having to deal with multiple suppliers. Contact us to find more queries on how we can help you set up your business in Saudi Arabia.