SAUDI SWITCHES TO FRIDAY-SATURDAY WEEKEND

RIYADH – Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia is switching its
weekend to Friday-Saturday to better serve its economy and “international
commitments,” the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday quoting a royal
decree.

Saudi Arabia becomes the
last of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council — which includes Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates — to abandon the Thursday-Friday
weekend to be closer to the world’s Saturday-Sunday weekend.

The decision takes effect
in ministries and government departments from next week, while it will be
implemented by schools and universities from the start of the next academic
year.

According to the decree the
change was made to better serve “the Saudi economy and its international
commitments” and coordinate with the working days in Saudi Arabia and the rest
of the world.

It will “reduce the
negative repercussions on economic and financial activity in the kingdom and
make up for lost economic opportunities,” said the decree.

Riyadh’s stock exchange,
the biggest in the Arab world, is open for five days a week, but until now only
three of these coincided with the working week in the world’s major financial
centres.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s
largest oil exporter and a member of the G20 group of the globe’s biggest
economies.

The move had been previously
rejected by clergymen in the kingdom, which follows the ultra conservative
Wahhabi school of Islam, on the grounds that Saturday is the religious weekend
for Jews. (AFP)