Firm needs one commercial registration to operate throughout Saudi Arabia: Minister

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Commerce Dr. Majed Al-Qasabi said that the law of commercial registration reads that a firm only needs one commercial registration to operate throughout the kingdom, local media reported.

“The Law of Commercial Registration and the Law of Trade Names, approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, will contribute to facilitating the practice of business and reducing the burdens on commercial establishments in the Kingdom,” Dr. Majed Al-Qasabi said while speaking to a local press agency.

The minister also revealed the main characteristics of the two laws as well as how they help the Kingdom’s business community operate.

These laws are updated to reflect the latest developments in the economy and technology, as well as the remarkable changes the Kingdom is going through in light of Saudi Vision 2030.

According to the minister, the Law of Commercial Registration, which has 29 articles, helps to make business easier by streamlining the registration process, guaranteeing the accuracy of the data registered and updating it on a regular basis, and organising the data so that it is easy to search for and access.
Several other provisions were also produced by the new law, the most important of which was the creation of a central computerised database that contains the names and other information of merchants, along with the details of the procedures and areas of expertise for commercial registration.

In order to reduce the financial burden on these businesses, the law made it easier to conduct commercial business by eliminating the need for companies and establishments to issue sub-registrations. Instead, a single commercial register at the Kingdom level would suffice to record all of the establishment’s operations.

Al-Qasabi claimed that the Law of Trade Names, which consists of twenty-three articles, attempts to maximize the value of names, safeguard them and the rights associated with them, and coordinate the processes for reserving and registering names in the commercial registration.

The law stipulated the requirements that must be fulfilled for trade names to be registered or reserved, as well as the names that are prohibited, and also permitted the reservation of a trade name prior to registration for a set amount of time that may be extended.

The law further broadened its application by permitting names that are composed of letters or digits, or that contain Arabic, non-Arabic, or Arabized terms.