Sources: Gulf News and Saudi Arabia public holidays. Last Friday, leading Saudi businessmen and economists, among which Adnan Al Naeem, the Secretary General of the Eastern Province Chamber Commerce and Industry (EPCCI), called for changing the weekend in the kingdom to Friday-Saturday, claiming that the present Thursday-Friday weekend was negatively affecting the economy of the kingdom.Analysis: Saudi Arabia's business community has long been used to being limited to 3 days a week (Monday to Wednesday) contact with the business world of the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. But recently, it is feeling even more isolated, as other Arabic members of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), such as Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait have changed their weekends (see our news posts of August 2006 and August 4, 2007).
Despite the mounting pressure from its business community, it is far from obvious that the government of Saudi Arabia will respond to such economic arguments, it being a kingdom ruled by religion above all else. In any event, if such a change were to occur, past experiences would seem to indicate that it would occur on a September 1st (perhaps in 2008 or 2009), the date chosen recently by all other Arabic countries for their change of weekends (see above links).
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